The Ultimate Kenwood-Trio FM tuner ...........

Maybe you know something about this holy grail, audio component :scratch2:

So Here's the story; I was living in Tacoma, Wa. about 18 years a go,where I
worked at Best Products store( out of business) I decided to go check out a
small A\V store in the shopping center where I worked. I went into the store
and looked around awhile, he had a really state-of-art, home-theater set up
using Sound Lab electrostatic speakers that he demo'd for me He also had a
lab where he was testing\ tweaking a number of amps,pre-amps.cd players
Him & I talked about HDTV,LD, speakers; we got talking about FM tuners and
I ask'd him what he thought of the Sequarra tuner, he said it was nice,but not
the ultimate in FM tuners,he that title belongs to a TRIO tuner that was made
in the mid 1970's that had a staggering price tag of $ 15,000 U.S. dollars !!!
the Sequarra, price tag was about $3000 (1977) He said he saw the tuner a
japanese audio engineering society meeting were he was guest. It was built to
as a project to show what was possible with FM broadcast technolgy
There were only 3 made, 1 was brought by NHK , 1 by japanese collector and
the first one was kept by the founder (?) president of Kenwood-Trio Corp.
He said the Sequerra was joke compared to it, no exspense was spared building\designing it. He went on saying it weighed about 80 lbs !!!!
I could never find any info on this tuner to this day.:scratch2:

I think he was pulling your lariat. The best Kenwood tuner I know of is the 600T. And you can't get much better than that by any manufacturer.

dr*audio said:

I think he was pulling your lariat. The best Kenwood tuner I know of is the 600T. And you can't get much better than that by any manufacturer.

Click to expand...

What about the L-02T?

John

jheu02 said:

What about the L-02T?

John

Click to expand...

And according to TIG, the L-01 is supposed to be pretty good as well.

I don't think he was was pulling my lariot:lmao: I,ve spent alot of time in
japan and the stores of Tokyo's legendary Akihabra electric town and seen
the truly lunatic fringe stereo \ audio creations sold only there,made by fanatics, plus why would he make up such a story ?

BTW, this guy's store was located in a shopping center at 38th & Pine, Tacoma
Wa. can't remember name of his store,but maybe some one else does :scratch2: and knows who he is.

Lirpa Labs?

Ask and it shall be given!

http://hometheaterreview.com/sequerra-model-1-fm-tuner-reviewed/

I don't doubt that Kenwood would have done a handbuild cost-no-object tuner to show off at trade shows and in the lab, but it certainly never made production.

L-02T is the best they ever built in terms of tuner performance...there are some that get pretty close, but it's the champ.

umm, wouldn't the best Kenwood tuner have been an Accuphase?

No matter.

If there were a Kenwood über-tuner, it should be documented here:
http://www.audio-heritage.jp/TRIO-KENWOOD/index.html

maybe this rascal?
http://www.audio-heritage.jp/TRIO-KENWOOD/tuner/l-02tpro.html

600T is amazing. $15,000 to listen to compressed, static filled, commercial laden FM, sweet!

Botique "Kenwood" Tuner

hifihippie said:

BTW, this guy's store was located in a shopping center at 38th & Pine, Tacoma
Wa. can't remember name of his store,but maybe some one else does :scratch2: and knows who he is.

Click to expand...

I wonder if it was called Advanced Audio? They still exist in the same general area and Tacoma was'nt exactly flush with high end audio dealers.

It is not suprising that some one like a Kenwood CEO would lust after a botique built tuner of "Shindo" one off or "ultralimited" execution style from a artisan designer and put the Kenwood name on it. Joseph Chow of Audio Horizons might know as he is both a tuner guru and worked for Kenwood & Proton before moving to the USA. If I remember correctly, Tim de Paravicini was also designing tuners in Japan at the time although I think it was for Luxman but he could have been freelancing also...:scratch2:

Bumping up this old thread but I wonder if it was the LX-3 which was apparently a prototype that Kenwood showed at an audio fair in 1980?

I came across mentions of the Kenwood LX series of components via The Vintage Knob a while ago, although I can't find this now. It seems that they were prototypes that Kenwood produced in Japan but were never released commercially. Apparently the tuner in the line-up was the LX-3 which appears to have been shown at an audio fair in Japan in 1980. There is a poor-quality pic here from a catalogue produced in conjunction with the fair:

http://s682.photobucket.com/user/naac_tr/media/STEREO SOUND JAPAN/KENWOODLX-3.jpg.html

It has the look of a scanner or a communications receiver rather than a hi-fi separate. Indeed it reminds me of the scanners produced by AOR in the late 80s. What intrigues me is that TVK hinted at the LX components as being something really special.

Has anyone else on the group ever heard of this tuner and can anyone supply any more info? It certainly sounds very intriguing and I would love to learn more if possible.

Regards,
Nick

I've never heard anything about this series of Trios(remember they weren't Kenwoods). The idea seems perfectly consistent with the aims of Japanese Hi-Fi corporations of that time.

There was a world-wide recession in '82 which basically applied the death-knell to the less profitable Japanese corporations, put a clamp on the extreme development of Ultra Japanese hi-fi components by the larger Japanese corporations and effectively began the downward slide of the hi-fi market to the point where it is today.

If you have any of the Ultra components of that era(and there are many of them, even if they weren't manufactured in great quantity) do your best to maintain them and enjoy your good fortune.