Kenwood KW-550 Tube Tuner

I picked this up a while back for a pretty good price. It was pretty dirty though, especially the chassis. Over the past month or so I've been hitting it pretty hard and giving it a good cleaning. Overall it's in really, really good shape. The only thing that's "bad" is that the lettering on the faceplate is very light. It's all there, just not very dark. All of the tubes are Matsushita's except for one 6BL8 that is a Sylvania. I suspect that they are original tubes but I don't know that for sure. They all tested really strong though. I replaced the caps and most of the resistors and lightly sanded and cleaned up the wood cabinet (don't know if it's original or not).

It cleaned up nicely and works great. Little bit of light leakage along the top that I haven't taken care of yet. Doubt that I'll keep it though as I have more tuners than I can use and have a Mac MR-66 in the on-deck circle. Other than what I read in the service manual I know next to nothing about this tuner. Good? Bad? Middle of the road? If anyone is familiar with it and can pass along any info it would be appreciated!

Don

Beautiful tuner you have there! Is the case is original? How does it sound to you? Any comparisons to your other tuners?

Just out of curiosity, what make are the black caps with the green lettering on them, I haven't seen these before - they look new. Also, just curious to know what the yellow coupling caps are? I have a tube tuner resto to do and am interested in what people choose.

I don't know if the case is original or not. It is solid heavy wood. Black caps with green lettering are Vishay Sprague Atoms (from Mouser) and the yellow coupling caps are Mojotone. I haven't really listened to it all that much so I really can't say one way or the other. Hope to have some time this weekend that I can dedicate to giving it a good listen.

Don