Kenwood DP-2000 (1985)

Name: Kenwood DP-2000
Brand: Kenwood

The Kenwood DP-2000 is a CD player from around 1985, introduced at a Japanese retail price of ¥149,800. It is remembered as Kenwood's first self-developed CD player - a flagship ("topmodel") that the company built to make a statement. The unit is heavy and serious, built around a thick metal chassis that gives it a solid feel.

The DP-2000's main engineering focus was mechanical rigidity. It uses a three-beam semiconductor laser system, and Kenwood gave it an eccentric absorption mechanism. A ring-shaped magnet on the disc clamper holds the disc level. A brass center guide floats on a compression coil spring to handle discs with different center-hole sizes. The idea was to keep the disc's rotation center point absolutely fixed, which reduces servo burden and improves read accuracy.

The electronics got the same attention. The player uses a 16-bit linear D/A converter in an "Unilinear" configuration, with a FIR-type digital filter that cuts unwanted bands from 24.1 kHz to 64.1 kHz by more than 80 dB. The output stage is a cascade feedback amplifier in a twin configuration, so the left and right channels don't interfere with each other. There's a phase-invert output that flips the signal 180° in the digital domain, so you can listen in positive phase. A subcode output terminal is also present.

Measured performance from the period was excellent: dynamic range of 96 dB, S/N of 97 dB, frequency response of 2 Hz to 20 kHz ± 0.5 dB, total harmonic distortion of 0.001% at 1 kHz, and channel separation of 96 dB. The power supply uses a two-transformer, four-winding, 11-power-supply configuration to keep the D/A converter block isolated from the rest of the circuitry. The DP-2000 weighs roughly 9-10 kg and comes with the RC-2000 wireless remote control.

The feature set is broad. The player offers manual search, jump selection, random play of up to 16 tracks, memory repeat of a specific section, a "reserve" key for queuing the next track, an auto-pause function, and a space function that inserts about four seconds of silence between tracks.

Little is documented about the DP-2000's market reception or its position within the broader Kenwood lineup beyond its role as the company's first in-house CD design. A 96-page English service manual exists, which is good news for collectors. It is a rare and relatively obscure model today.