My first amp (basement find), Kenwood KA-9100

cowdog360

Active Member
I was busy this weekend cleaning out my brother in laws old room (unfortunately). There's a lot of old dusty audio gear in there. Initially I was pretty pleased to have found some good condition B&W DM302's which sound great. Underneath an old desk was a very heavy dusty Kenwood KA-9100. It was in pretty good physical shape with a bent power switch and a teeny bit of rust on the top cover. I gave it a good cleaning, and it was cracking and popping a lot with the volume knob. Used some DeOxit D5 on the knob and now it sounds great!

What a cool piece of equipment, I think I'll hang onto it and probably re-cap it in the future.

What I'm hoping to find is any way that anyone has come up with replacing the output sections with newer IC's or discrete components just so I have an option to future proof it. Everything stock works, but I figure if I'm going to hang onto this for years, it would be nice to have a contingency plan.

So far, I'm in love with the combo of the amp and speakers.. just need to get a good sound car or DAC and hook this up to the PC.
 

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That is a really nice find!

That unit uses the unobtainable TA-100 output modules (same as the KA-8300). They are quasi-unobtanium, so be careful with them as the only way of obtaining them is from a donor unit (check for the threads about it).
 
Nice Find

KA-9100 is my daily driver.....she has balls for days. Treat her to a proper service to set bias and DC offset. You want her running at the proper temp...

Look for Echowars here on AK, he understands the KA-9100 like a boss.....
 
That is a great find! :thmbsp: I looked under all the furniture in my house and didn't find anything except some balls of cat fur.
 
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