TRIO KR5600 RECEIVER information wanted

[goldenfleece]

Does anyone have any info on the TRIO KR5600 receiver, dating from around 1977/8 I would guess from the teak effect wooden cabinet. Found it at a car boot sale this morning for £5 and did not expect it to work, but it kicked into life immediately and boasts an impressive 350 watts RMS total output, according to the info on the back panel. Thats no joke either, I could not even run it at 1/3 volume with a CD input through aux socket and my 200W max speakers were jumping up and down! This machine kicks out one hell of a solid and rich sound and looks to have very litle use, hardly a scratch on it. Its a AM/FM receiver and seems fully laden with top of tha range features for the late 70's, tape dubbing, 2 phono imputs (ceramic and magnetic phono inputs as well), switching for 4 speakers, various stereo/mono DIN and multitude of LINE/PHONO sockets on the back. I guess this would have been a top range receiver in the 70's? Think it was a great bargain for a fiver.........see how long it lasts though....

[Paul_RK]

Sorry to disappoint, but the 350 watts quoted on the back panel will be power consumption, not output! The KR5600 is listed in the 1978 HiFi Year Book as having a 40+40 watt RMS output, and was a good mid-range unit at the time, selling for £255.55 plus VAT: Trio had three lesser models and two costlier ones in their own receiver range. Somehow watts aren't what they used to be, so if you're accustomed to the ratings given for more modern equipment I can well understand your being highly impressed with this unit's capabilities. Definitely a bargain for a fiver, and bargains do seem still to be around at boot sales and flea markets when it comes to vintage Japanese audio: I was very happy with a 1980 Pioneer receiver, 80+80 watts, bought for £10 at a flea market, which I used regularly for a few years until a recent upgrade to a late '70s Pioneer tuner, pre-amp and 2x150 watt power amplifier for the more serious investment of £25 the lot

Paul

[Paul Stenning]

Sounds like an excellent bargain!

Trio became Kenwood some time in the 80s - I believe they were called Kenwood in other countries before then but could not use the name in the UK because it was (and still is) owned by a manufacturer of kitchen appliances. Quite why they could in the 80s I don't know.

Trio/Kenwood produced decent kit before and after the name-change. That's clearly a top-end receiver and I reckon there's plenty more life in it yet. It may need a few new electrolytic caps in due course though. Just be careful with the ventilation when winding it up - you don't want to cook the output stage and it may be best not to rely on the over-temperature protection working correctly.

[goldenfleece]

It certainly does get very hot on top, wOnt be standing anything on top of it for sure, but the fins at the back do a very good cooling job.

cant believe its only 80 watts max sound output, My God do they make watts sound like megawatts in those days!!!! The crisp, deep and rich sound is totally clear and far superior to my modern system. Bottom, mid and top ranges were all thoroughly distinctive and totally alive, even with pushing a very complicated track through it. Also very impressed with the tuner section, beautiful and detailed stereo with excellant channel separaration on FM, and really pulls in the signals with just a very basic 2 metres of aeriel connected.

Not much happening on AM though aside from very faint and crackly reception,failed to find anything at all aside from a barely audible Virgin AM at one end of the scale There should be a lot more there than that......

[Nickthedentist]

Originally Posted by Paul Stenning

Sounds like an excellent bargain!

Couldn't agree more. I have a couple of Trio receivers from this period, both of which are so good that they form the basis of my main and second hifi systems. The tuner sections in particular, are superb, picking up many weak stations on FM that I didn't even know existed. One came from eBay (complete with matching cassette deck and turntable) for £25, the other I found dumped on the pavement outside an estate agents in London with a sign saying "£15, enquire within" - which I got for £5 after a bit of haggling

Originally Posted by Paul Stenning

Just be careful with the ventilation when winding it up - you don't want to cook the output stage and it may be best not to rely on the over-temperature protection working correctly.

Be VERY careful not to short circuit the speaker outputs or use speakers of too low an impedance. Although these are robust units and run quite cool, if you fry the O/P transistors, exact replacements will be impossible to source and your receiver will be unrepairable

Nick.

[Nickthedentist]

Originally Posted by goldenfleece

Also very impressed with the tuner section, beautiful and detailed stereo with excellant channel separaration on FM, and really pulls in the signals with just a very basic 2 metres of aeriel connected.

Not much happening on AM though aside from very faint and crackly reception,failed to find anything at all aside from a barely audible Virgin AM at one end of the scale There should be a lot more there than that......

Mine are the same: FM is as good as they come, AM is a joke. I don't think it's a fault.

[Nickthedentist]

One other tip... Open up the unit and check that all the fuses are correctly rated. In at least a quarter of amplifiers I've dealt with, they've been replaced with something that's far too hefty, presumably because some twit has had an accident and then got the unit going again by jamming in whatever fuse came to hand - often a 13A plug fuse wedged into the 20x5mm holder

[goldenfleece]

Yes all fuses seem fine, under 1/2" of dust so probably the originals!!!! Some very tightly packed kit in here.....seems to be crammed into every available bit of space, no wonder it needs cooling fins at the back as well as top cover vents......

Amazingly the tuning meter works as does signal strength meter, and all the bulbs as well, tuning scale boasts 4 seperate lamps, plus the lamps for the tuning strength meters and the red power lamp. I am a happy man......the first thing ever from a car boot where everything appears to work.

Feel guilty now about knocking the price down from £8 to £5 with a bit of car boot haggle......oh well.....it COULD have been totally and utterly dead fairly easily....

[Paul Stenning]

Originally Posted by goldenfleece

cant believe its only 80 watts max sound output, My God do they make watts sound like megawatts in those days!!!!

They are real RMS watts, probably quoted over the fill 20Hz to 20kHz frequency band. Quite unlike the fictious "peak" or "music power" or whatever "calculation" they use to come up with output powers now for things like PC speakers and car audio.

80 watts is actually quite a lot of power for domestic use. Consider that a typical valve radio will have an output power of around 2 or 3 watts and will easily fill a room at reasonable volume.

Around 20 years ago I ran a mobile disco with a friend and we had 200W RMS (2 x 100W Maplin Mosfet amplifier modules) and that was more than ample to fill the average village hall or pub function room with volume to spare (in those days it wasn't necessary to have sub-woofers and bass you could feel though).

With your amp, chances are it's your speakers that are distorting at high levels, not the amp. Hi-fi speakers are not quoted for continuous operation at the rated power, or anything even remotely like it. The speaker rating is a guide to the size amplifier you can use them with on the assumption that you will be using the power of the amplifier for peaks and transients, not continuously.

Disco/PA speakers are (or should be) quoted for continuous operation, which is why they are so much more substantial for the same apparent rating. Even then the speakers should be twice the power rating of the amp if they are to survive for more than a few weeks.

[goldenfleece]

This amazing vintage receiver has proved slightly troublesome, in that I have been playing it so loud the neighbours have now officially complained!! Now, it takes A LOT for them to complain as their house is actually 25 metres away, but I was really whacking up the volume to around 2/3, pumped through four massive JAMO (275W each max peak capacity) speakers with some very difficult ambient trance CD, full of very difficult bass lines, percussion, orchestral swirls and deep inner mixing, it tests even the most audiophile amps. Amazingly, it remained clear, undistorted, and totally refined. On some old amps, when they reach max power you get the tuning scale lamps reducing in brightness on each drum beat, sound clipping, etc, but this was perfect, and NO clipping! I must get some more of these machines.......

I was stunned....VIVA VINTAGE AMPS!!!

[Nickthedentist]

Originally Posted by goldenfleece

This amazing vintage receiver has proved slightly troublesome, in that I have been playing it so loud the neighbours have now officially complained!! Now, it takes A LOT for them to complain as their house is actually 25 metres away, but I was really whacking up the volume to around 2/3, pumped through four massive JAMO (275W each max peak capacity) speakers with some very difficult ambient trance CD, full of very difficult bass lines, percussion, orchestral swirls and deep inner mixing...

No wonder your one "gets very hot on top" and mine stays lovely and cool

[goldenfleece]

Just got the slightly later and more refined KR 6600 model now, 80w X 80W spec and just as lovely sound.....WOW!

[Paul_RK]

Nice Not sure it's any later, as it's listed in the '78 Year Book again, which puts it as 60+60 watts: frequency response 20Hz-50kHz(!)+/- 0.5dB, and list price £337.77 plus VAT. And I see it has a "sound injection" control: can't say I've met that one before, unless it's just a name for a pot. to mix the mic input...

Only the KR 9600 to go now

Paul

[goldenfleece]

Originally Posted by Paul_RK

Nice Not sure it's any later, as it's listed in the '78 Year Book again, which puts it as 60+60 watts: frequency response 20Hz-50kHz(!)+/- 0.5dB, and list price £337.77 plus VAT. And I see it has a "sound injection" control: can't say I've met that one before, unless it's just a name for a pot. to mix the mic input...

Only the KR 9600 to go now

Paul

When it arrives I will let you know what this does. So far only have the Ebay chaps comments and ratings figures and performance review.

Hope AM works better than the 5600, its horrible on mine.
I wonder if the AM circuit could be faulty actually, there is simply NOTHING there. A few days ago it could just pick up Virgin AM but it struggled......now that has vanished.

KR9600, and what delights does this one hold, should I find one......