I absolutely loved Kenwood gear growing up, and managed to piece together an all-Kenwood system in the late 80s/early 90s.
I worked for a couple of dealers that sold Kenwood from 1994-2000, and then worked for Kenwood while they were making their last push in higher performance home audio gear (through 2003) so I've got some perspective on this one:
Kenwood in the 60s and 70s: solid, but not as well regarded as Sansui and Pioneer...not a huge surprise, cos as pretty as the big Kennys were back then, there's just something about a Pioneer SX-1250. A definite exception here were the Supreme series, and the big integrateds and tuners (KA-9100, KT-8300) which were as good as anything being built. Most of the better 70s stuff is still around, and our own EW mentions in one of his posts that eBay practically runs on used KA-7100s...so true
Kenwood in the 80s: complete redesign of the line-up, and some of the most impressive high-end gear to come out of Japan. Technologies like "Sigma Drive" and the "Pulse Count Detector" tuner circuitry are introduced and result in some truly amazing sounding gear. All the L-series equipment is amazing, although it didn't sell very well in the states...talking to old colleagues, Kenwood darn near went out of business when the L-07CII was out there...mid 80s. After that, they started on their real kick towards costing down: the KA-907, KA-801 etc were replaced by the "Non Magnetic Chassis" (read: plastic) KA-1000, KA-900. This went for tuners as well, with the new TOTL (non L-series tuner) being the plastic-sided chassis KT-1000. Nice sounding gear, but it just didn't feel like the solid old stuff. Owning both series, I can tell you it hasn't held up as well either. Towards the end of the 80s, the color schemed switched from silver to black, and Kenwood built some great flagship 2-channel gear. The KA-3300D, KT-3300, and DP-3300 made a great impression, and even Stereophile gave the FM-only tuner kudos for its performance. The "Basic" series also bowed, offering a nice separates-based system at very reasonable prices. (Some AK members love the C-2 preamp to this day)
The low end 80s gear wasn't very good. You can see how cheesy the old KA-31, KA-50, etc looked...cheap chassis, small power supplies...the standard down-market stereo gear. The market was FLOODED with this stuff, and that started to negatively impact the brand's reputation.
Kenwood in the 90s: With the exception of the L-1000 series in the mid-90s, there wasn't a lot of drool-worthy gear coming out of Kenwood's factories. Most of their R&D money was going into either "Home Theater" gear or Car Stereo. That said, the amplifier sections on some of their better AVRs was excellent. Take a listen to a KR-X1000, or KR-V990D and you'll hear what I'm talking about. All discrete-transistors amplifier, with beefy power supplies. Quite good.
There was a real dark side though. Kenwood started to sell a lot of down-market separates based rack systems into the big chain stores. All those KC-207s and KM-992s you see on the auction sites are old parted-out rack systems. While these offered a MUCH higher level of performance than most of the single-brand systems at the time, they still negatively impacted the brand's image...who's going to buy a $1500 tuner from a company that makes a $99 receiver? Retailers never supported Kenwood's higher end 2-channel gear in the 90s (with the exception of the Kenwood "Basic" series which might have carried from the late 80s into the early 90s) so the L-1000 series never really took off.
The A/V receivers on the other hand did gang-buster business, and Kenwood was first to market with a lot of cool features...first with dts in an affordable receiver ($399 VR-209) first with video format conversion, first with THX certification (KR-X1000 receiver, and KC-X1 KM-X1 separates) all the while keeping some great sounding amplifier sections in their best gear...most based around Kenwood's own output transistor (had the thermal sensor built right into the transistor's body...call TRAIT, K-STAT, or TRAIT-R depending on your market)
As a side-note, Kenwood also worked with Foster (a huge driver company) to produce a very good sounding THX-certified speakers system in the mid 90s.
One of the most dissapointing near-successes was the Stage 3 line...the KC-Z1 surround preamp and KM-Z1 6 channel amplifier are IMO drop-dead gorgeous, and the system sounded great. Unfortunately, a proprietary remote control, and a lack of digital and video connectivity resulted in a fairly short lifespan...
Most of the cheap AVRs from this period are pretty junky, as are most of the rack system tuners, CDPs, and Cassette decks...in short, their best was still quite good, but their worst was very pedestrian
Kenwood in the 2000s: The last push in to the North American Home Audio market. The big AVRs were awesome. The VR-4900 was highly reviewed by Stereophile, and it's updated replacement (with all the new surround formats and HD compatible video switching) the VR5900 was just as wonderful. Still a couple of the best sounding AVRs of all time. Retailers REFUSED to support a 5-channel receiver with an outboard amp for the 6th and 7th channels (and who really sets up the (Surround Back speakers?) however, and the brand quickly lost out to Denon, and Onkyo in the surround receiver race.
Other interesting technologies were tried, including Entre, the first real integrated music server (with Internet radio, and management of compatble CD and DVD changers) a great sounding stand-alone Sirius tuner, Faroudja-based DVD players (all the way down to $350) but none were widely supported. Kenwood showed a pretty pedestrian home audio assortment in 2003 (a couple of nice machines at the $500/level but nothing monumental) and Japan pulled back development $$ shortly thereafter to concentrate on the compact stereo, communications, and car stereo market.
...more to come if I ever get my damn Kenwood "fansite" up and running
