Kenwood Corporation

History

Established in 1946 as the Kasuga Radio Co. Ltd. in Komagane City, Nagano Prefecture, Japan, in 1960 the company was renamed Trio Corporation. In 1963 the first overseas office was founded in Los Angeles County, California.

In the early 1960s, Trio's products were rebranded by the Lafayette Radio Company, with a focus on citizens' band radio.

An importer of Japanese-made electronics RadioShack was A&A Trading Co., and a bilingual Japanese-speaking manager from there, William "Bill" Kasuga partnered with George Aratani and Yoichi Nakase to establish a company that would be the exclusive importer of Trio products.

The name Kenwood was invented by Kasuga as being the combination of "Ken", a name common to Japan and North America that had been tested and proven acceptable to American consumers in the name of Kenmore appliances, and "Wood", referring to the durable substance as well as suggesting a relation to Hollywood, California. The brand recognition of Kenwood eventually surpassed that of Trio's, and in 1986 Trio bought Kenwood and renamed itself Kenwood. George Aratani was the first chairman of Kenwood USA Corporation and succeeded by Kasuga. Kenwood merged with JVC in 2008 as JVC Kenwood.

Kenwood introduced its Sovereign line of components in 2001.

Today, products marketed by the company to consumer and commercial audiences fall within the home audio, car audio aftermarket and OEM, in car entertainment, amateur radio, professional two-way radio and DECT wireless intercom sectors.

Kenwood is a brand of JVCKENWOOD Corporation.

Amateur radio transceivers

Kenwood has offered lines of HF, VHF/UHF, and portable amateur radio models, including some with built-in digital data modes (Automatic Packet Reporting System, built on AX.25 packet radio) and modems needed to send and receive these protocols.

Among the product lines are the "TS" series of HF transceivers which cover the HF ("high frequency") bands, from 1.8 to 50 MHz.

Other series include the 100, 500, and the 2000 series. Kenwood also offers a "B" model, which is a transceiver without display or controls and is completely controlled by a remote computer or a separate control unit.

KA Series hi-fi systems

Kenwood's series of "Integrated Amplifier" stereo power amplifiers, launched in 1977 and produced through the mid-1980s. The design for most of these items features a true dual-mono path for stereo output (in other words, no electrical components are shared between left- and right-channel amplification). Front plates were typically made in brushed aluminum with aluminum knobs and switches, glass covers, and in some cases analog VU meters.

Amplifiers in this series included (in no particular order)

NV Series hi-fi systems

These were a series of mini hi-fi systems launched in 2000, all featuring an ultra modern design. Each one is dealt with separately.

The NV-301 and NV-701 were probably the top-of-the-range models of the NV series. Both shared a three-layered half-mirrored sleek design, the main difference mainly lay in the specification of the two systems. The NV-301 was the basic model with two speakers and with a simple phono input (marked for MiniDisc and DVD players) while the NV-701 was a 5.1 Dolby surround sound model with A/V inputs. Both featured a three-disc carousel, a cassette player with Dolby B noise reduction, a natural display, intelligent features and the ability to save up to 40 radio stations. Kenwood had clearly taken huge advantage of microcomputers as evident in the functions that are featured; had old methods been used, the NV-301/701 would have been much larger. These features had never been matched by other manufacturers, with other designs being rather crude by comparison.

Communications equipment

Kenwood is a brand of JVCKENWOOD Corporation and a global leader in the design, development and manufacture of commercial, operations and mission critical two-way radio solutions, offering a portfolio of proven products and solutions across multiple protocols and technologies including wireless DECT intercom systems, PMR446, dPMR446, dPMR, P25, DMR and NXDN. The Kenwood communications product range includes hand-portable and mobile terminals (including Intrinsically Safe and ATEX / IECEx hand-portables), repeaters, infrastructure and application solutions which are supported in over 120 countries by an established network of wholly owned subsidiaries and distribution partners and widely used to enable integrated voice and data communications.