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Kenwood KT-7300

72.225.7.66
Posted on April 13, 2024 at 06:05:58
RhythmDevil
Audiophile

Posts: 231
Joined: November 23, 2014
 I was trolling through a favorite used record store today, and fell in love with the looks of this silver beauty. It was going for a song, and I needed a tuner for a second system, so it came home with me.

Simple vintage look, great reception on my local stations, and a surprisingly good presentation, with good deep bass and airy highs.

I don't believe it has ever been refurbished; it is virtually certain to have electrolytics that are aged. I have the skills and tools to try to DIY, but things like alignments are beyond my skillset.

So, what's the opinion here -- is it worth pursuing on this unit, or should I just relax and continue enjoying the music as is?



Cerebrate!

 

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RE: Kenwood KT-7300, posted on April 13, 2024 at 07:55:41
BCR
Audiophile

Posts: 2454
Location: connecticut
Joined: April 7, 2009
 Kenwood always made top notch tuners. This is from FM tunerinfo.com
Kenwood KT-7300 (1977, $260, photo, schematic) search eBay
The KT-7300 is a solidly built tuner that weighs a ton, and the consensus is that it has excellent sound. With 4 gangs and 3 280 kHz (wide) filters in stock form, the KT-7300 has the potential to be a decent tuner for DXing (but not as good as a modified KT-7500) when tuned up and modified with narrow filters. The KT-7300 is virtually identical, cosmetically, to the KT-7500, even though it's not even close to the same tuner electronically. It has a variable output level knob on the front panel, plus an FM MPX filter and separate muting and auto/mono switches. On the back panel are jacks for an oscilloscope, a 75 µS/25 µS de-emphasis switch and an FM detector output jack. The KT-7300 has one IF gain stage and there is easy access to the circuit board for mods.

Our contributor Bill Ammons reports that the KT-7300 is a great tuner for weak-signal areas but not as good a performer where there are a number of strong signals. See Bob's Filter Corner for a description of Bill's PCB filter mod, see the DIY Mods page for information on DIY audio section and power supply mods for the KT-7300, and read about the performance of a modded KT-7300 on the Modified Tuner Report page. See how one KT-7300 sounded compared to many top tuners on our Shootouts page. The KT-7300 can usually be bought for $30-70 on eBay (with occasional lows of under $20), but over $100 is possible.

 

RE: Kenwood KT-7300, posted on April 13, 2024 at 13:36:40
RhythmDevil
Audiophile

Posts: 231
Joined: November 23, 2014
 Wow! Thanks for the great info and the link. What an amazing resource!
Kinda like getting a drink of water from a fire hose, I am deluged with info. Neat.

I will have to read and see what simple things might be done that are within my abilities.





Cerebrate!

 

RE: Kenwood KT-7300, posted on April 13, 2024 at 19:04:58
HoosierAudio
Audiophile

Posts: 377
Location: MidWest, USA
Joined: November 28, 2005
 Hi RD,

Also in the Tuner Information Center is a recipe for a recap on the 7300 in their DIY section. I attached a link

Have fun
HA

 

If it sounds OK, and tunes to indicated center channel..., posted on April 19, 2024 at 15:10:12
mhardy6647
Audiophile

Posts: 16188
Location: New England
Joined: October 12, 1999
Contributor
  Since: October 23, 2016
 I'd just keep using it as is.
If you're really paranoid about its health, replace the power supply filter capacitors.
I'd advise you not to mess with alignment or adjustment of any (!) of the tuned circuits, and I'd further suggest that you don't try to clean the multisection variable tuning capacitor(s) unless you'll read up on how to do it (and how not to do it) and you're the careful type.

The Kenwood tuners were good, and even sound pretty decent (unlike most solid state tuners IME). I have a KT-9900 (gunmetal colored KT-8300 variant) that my son picked up at a thrift store in VA some years back. It is beautiful and it does sound good.

DSC_9935




all the best,
mrh

 

RE: If it sounds OK, and tunes to indicated center channel..., posted on April 20, 2024 at 03:30:53
RhythmDevil
Audiophile

Posts: 231
Joined: November 23, 2014
 Good advice. I am going to sit back and enjoy the music. It pulls in the stations I care about beautifully, and sounds great. Until it's broken, don't fix it. :)

Cerebrate!

 

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