Kenwood KA-1000
The Kenwood KA-1000 is a DC power amplifier that Kenwood pushed hard as part of its "Purist" line in the early 1980s. The ad copy ran in several publications. It promised a "totally new way to look at amplifier performance," built around the company's SIGMA DRIVE circuitry, which tied speaker behavior directly to amplifier performance for unprecedented damping, plus a touch-sensor volume control. Audio (April 1981, p.47) carried the campaign, as did HiFI-Stereo (September 1981, p.53) and High Fidelity (April 1981, p.40).
Behind the marketing, the KA-1000 is a pure DC amplifier with dual mono construction and a large power transformer, built around SIGMA DRIVE technology. It delivers 130 watts per channel into 8 ohms and 180 watts into 4 ohms. It can be bridged to 400 watts mono into 8 ohms. Total harmonic distortion is rated at 0.002%, damping factor is 400, and signal-to-noise ratio is 120dB. Frequency response extends to 200kHz at the top end. Sources conflict on the low-frequency cutoff (one lists 0.5Hz, another 5Hz), so treat the lower figure as uncertain.
Among collectors, the KA-1000 is known as one of Kenwood's "sleeper" high-end amps, rare and collectible. One owner on AudioKarma called it "a unique piece of high-end audio history" with "massive power reserves." The same owner community notes two practical problems: the original capacitors will eventually need replacing, and the service manual is extremely hard to come by.
Not documented: production years, original price, weight, dimensions, and the amp's exact position in Kenwood's lineup. If you have the manual or measured data, the Archive would welcome it.
- 130W/ch into 8Ω (stereo); 180W/ch into 4Ω; 400W mono bridged into 8Ω
- THD: 0.002%
- Damping factor: 400
- S/N ratio: 120dB
- Pure DC amplifier, dual mono construction, speaker protection relay
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