Lafayette LT-78 Tuner

kenwood1986

New Member
I recently purchased a Lafayette tube tuner LT-78 on Craigslist for what I thought was a pretty decent price . I brought it home , cleaned it up , and hooked it up to my system . In my opinion this is a fantastic tuner ! It pulls in all my stations , even the hard to get ones with a cheap wire antenna ! This is my first tube tuner , and is really my first experience with anything tube , and I must say I am impressed ! I could not find much information on this tuner other than that it exists . I would appreciate all comments and opinions you may have on this tuner , thanks !
 
Lafayette, up to their bitter end, tended to sell good tuners. I suspect some were Kenwood OEM (but I am not 100% sure of that). They tend to be moderately common and not particularly expensive, too. Not much to complain about! ;-)

what've I got handy? well... here's the "C" version:

Scan_Pic0028 by mhardy6647, on Flickr

Yours is unsuffixed? Lemme see what I can find... meanwhile, some more vintage 1960s LRE tuners...

Scan_Pic0027 by mhardy6647, on Flickr
Scan_Pic0026 by mhardy6647, on Flickr
Scan_Pic0024 by mhardy6647, on Flickr
 
Lafayette audio-a brand relatively unknown whose quality fell under the radar compared to the other larger known brands.

Yes, Lafayette tuners are exceptional, as I also have found out.
I have a Lafayette LT-D10 (not tube though) and it is fantastic to say the least.
(http://www.radiomuseum.org/r/lafayette_stereo_fm_am_tuner_lt_d10.html)

Enjoy your new found audio tuner. :tresbon:

To most people they mabe unknown but too alot of people they are very well known for their tube amplifers and preamplifiers. The tuners were not that great but the kt 600 stereo preamp and the kt 550 amplifier are well regarded and designed by stu hegemen of marantz fame.
 
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To most people they mabe unknown but too alot of people they are very well known for their tube amplifers and preamplifiers. The tuners were not that great but the kt 600 stereo preamp and the kt 550 amplifier are well regarded and designed by stu hegemen of marantz fame.

I know he designed the Citation H-K tube line but never associated with Marantz. Are you confusing him with Sid Smith who worked with Saul until Saul, left the company and walked with him or shortly thereafter.
 
I know he designed the Citation H-K tube line but never associated with Marantz. Are you confusing him with Sid Smith who worked with Saul until Saul, left the company and walked with him or shortly thereafter.

Yep,my bad brian.
 
Apparently I just bought one of these on eBay for not a terrible price to go along with my kt600 and LA70. The preamp is very good. Amps are pretty friggin good. They are 70 wpc so work better with inefficient speakers. I listen to a lot of fm so it will be compared to a wonderful kenwood 600t that I got off of ak. But now will have a complete Lafayette setup.
 
The Lafayette LT-78 wasn't a bad tuner but after 60 years, I would definitely check and or replace the majority of the capacitors and resistors in it. Although the word "Imported" seems to be omitted from my posted ad copy (unless I'm going blind), the tuner was manufactured by Trio. It was only in the main catalog for one year and then replaced by the LT-78C. There was no "A" or "B" version.

I never considered the Lafayette LT-D10 to be a great tuner. Having diddled with almost every Lafayette tuner since the late 50's, in the solid state arena, the Lafayette LT-425T is way up on top of the list. The LT-D10 was cobbled together to further enhance the tuner/amplifier combo, the amplifiers being the LA-74 and LA-84. I don't recall much customer enthusiasm for the LT-D10. I think there was only one manufacturing run of LT-D10's and then they were dropped. I still have my LT-D10 which I picked up for $10 to match my Lafayette LA-74 amplifier but have now migrated over to the Sangean HDT-20 HD tuner.

As far as Lafayette tube tuners, my favorites have always been the KT-500 or KT-500A.

laf-LT78.jpg
 
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This seems to be a clone of the Trio AFX-210 tuner. In a lot of tuners with a grounded grid triode RF stage, the input is untuned. In this design, the cathode goes through a parallel R-C tuned circuit to the centre tap of the first tuned circuit. When this tuner is aligned properly, it seems quite selective. It uses matrix demultiplexing which is not as good as switching demultiplexing but it should be satisfactory. The design has a lot in common with the Trio KW-55 receiver.

trio-afx-210.jpg
 
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