Kenwood L-01A

Getting ready for the new decade : shiny and black, filled with technology and almost bare visually, using visible heat-pipes and sealed capacitor blocks, using metal, aluminium, painted wood and acryl, nylon and plastic.

Non-magnetic chassis, full DC structure, deported switches, special Matsushita 4-gang volume control, two copper-plated heat-pipes, two sealed & aluminium potted capacitor blocks with copper tops (each holding two 18,000µF / 63V caps), gold plated miniature relays, OFC Litz (partial) wiring, FET differential inputs, four pairs of 2SA1095 / 2SC2565 power transistors, an outboard power supply with four transformers (L / R / system / phono) and shunt type regulation, a damping factor of 1000 (!), Non-Switching circuitry, swift rise times for all (output and input), 2-frequencies / 3-level loudness control, relay-operated MM & MC inputs, 400Khz bandwidth - and more.


The service manual says that the "parallel input circuit" is explained in the KHA-50 service manual and that "constant current, differential amplifier and current mirror" circuits should be studied from the L-07C and L-07M manuals.
No Sigma Drive yet, though : that came with the slightly later KA-1000 sibling.

Sound-wise, this is pure modern Kenwood : tight, very tight and fast.
The only problem turned out to be some cases of overheating of the potted caps - even if idle current is to be set at the rather low value of 18mV...


If Kenwood sold a lot of 01s in Japan and Europe, I really think it came up two or three years too early : launched along a similarily designed first CD player (unlike the L-03DP) and the L-01T, such a trio would've sold like mad in 1983/84.

Kenwood planned a full-size stunner system in 1978/79, the unbelievable LX quartet, which very sadly remained at the functional prototype stage - the L-01A is what was finally produced.

The next stopper wasn't the LX but the L-02A, after which Kenwood's adventures into high-end audio were to become even more... sporadic.


Many very detailed internal views are visible here ; a real-life L-01A here and another one here.