Leak 3900

"Made to RANK Hi-Fi specifications in Japan."

Which here means : made by Rotel for Rank and its Leak subsidiary while the british Wharfedale, also a Rank subsidiary, made the Series 3000 loudspeakers.

The accompanuing 3900T tuner is mentioned in this catalog in the future tense and probably wasn't fully into production when photographed...

The 3900 sports two power transformers, four 22,000µF caps and double push-pull OCL power amps.

The 3900 version has only one transformer and only two caps but, bar the addition of a peak LED for the MIC input and slightly different meters (Leak-tagged this time), the rest of the features are the same : dubbing, tone controls with two turnover frequencies, hi & two-position lo filters, two phono inputs, loudness, muting etc.

I have no idea which version came first or if the A version was made for a specific market / area. I sadly have no catalog for the 3900A and the images and specs here are all for the 3900.

There aren't as many switches and knobs on the 3900 as Rotel allowed itself to adorn the RC-5000 with but the price wasn't equivalent either.
Nevertheless costing a sizeable 371.78£ in september 1976 !

Engineering-wise, the 3900 fits within the RA-1412 Rotel timeframe (the link is quite obvious), although there isn't a direct equivalent of the 3900 in that Rotel lineup and therefore not a straight rebadge but indeed "made to RANK Hi-Fi specifications".


This post was made possible thanks to Richard Poole, BBC engineer, who scanned his Leak 3000 brochure !
I remain unfortunately very poor in british hifi literature - thank you Richard !