I lost out on a KC 207 but did get the KT 87 tuner. Evidently, this KM 208 came with the KC 208 controller/preamp. With these simple mods, loudness contour need not be engaged. Kenwood actually made some damn fine AM-FM tuners back in the day. Carver PM-600 amp now prefers $40 KC-208 preamp over $200 Carver CT-17 preamp (which buzzes-n-hums due to excessive internal wiring, which will eventually be rectified). Because there's no access from below, & circuit board only comes out so far. Just be careful removing printed circuit board, as traces can be easily scratched on screw-support mounts. What an impressive increase in clarity-n-clout! Paired with modded Pioneer RG-9 Dynamic Processor through Tape Monitor 2 loop, 'tis a slice of early 80's-era harmonic heaven. Along with replacing thin stock power wiring to transformer with auld-skool 16 gauge, which also helps minimize hum. Apparently XS was to allow one remote to control all the parts of an XS compatible system. However, the preamp should work without XS connected to anything. The KC-209 was just a preamplifier and controller for those elements. Out of curiosity, decided to replace stock 2,200 uf filter caps in KC-208 with Nichicon 6,800 uf 50 volt caps as well. XS was a system Kenwood used to control other elements of the sound system. Now replicates that classique rich-n-warm early 70's solid-state Marantz tonality, & easily drives modded Sansui SP-2500 speakers (thanks once again Robisme). Recently replaced stock 4,700 uf computer-grade filter caps in Superscope R-1240 receiver with Nichicon 6,800 uf 50 volts, to impressive results. Got a Kenwood KC-208 pre-amp a few years ago, ostensibly for back-up duty.
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