Kenwood KX-5060S (1994–1995)
The Kenwood KX-5060S is a 2-head, single-well cassette deck. Kenwood first sold it in 1994 with a list price of $330 and discontinued it a year later. It's a straightforward, well-equipped deck from the tail end of the cassette era. Its most notable feature is Dolby S, the top-tier noise reduction system that showed up on serious decks in the mid-1990s. It also has Dolby B/C and HX-Pro.
Mechanically, it's a 3-motor design with three DC motors. There's a single record/playback head and a separate erase head, and tape speed is the standard 4.76 cm/s. Kenwood gave it a stainless steel head base and power loading, so the cassette drawer opens and closes electronically instead of by hand. The track system is standard 4-track, 2-channel stereo.
The record on the KX-5060S is thin beyond that. No frequency response, THD, signal-to-noise, dimensions or weight figures have surfaced in the research. No period reviews with measurements have turned up either. One source cites an article titled "KENWOOD KX-5060S: Great, cheap deck," which suggests it was regarded well as a budget-oriented performer, but the actual review content hasn't been recovered.
On the collector side, the deck has a used median price of roughly €89 based on seven tracked listings. Original factory service manuals still circulate - one sold through Blexen Collectibles in the Netherlands for €20 in late 2023. A Russian classified listing asking 19,000 ₽ suggests it still has a following in the secondhand market. The Dolby S and the 3-motor transport are the selling points. Detailed spec sheets and service documentation are scarce.
eBay Listings
As an eBay Partner, we earn from qualifying purchases. This helps support our independent vintage technology research.