Just got my Nak Dragon - Wow

I have a Nakamichi DR-1, not up to the Dragon but a fine deck. I think it is a great addition to my system in the ability to record my favorite vinyl that I play more frequently for some easy play back. I would love to have a Dragon, and perhaps some day will, as it really is the classic in analog tape.

Yes, some folks don’t believe how good a well-recorded cassette can sound on a great Nak deck. You have a collector’s item there, enjoy it and keep it well maintained.

Regards,

I still have a functional Nakamichi ZX-7 with the belt drives and it indeed is an analog treat. For pure musical pleasure I would put it up against many of the CDP's of the day and I can record, obviously! Topoxforddoc it's cool to hear there is still someone out there hearing the Nak quality. Enjoy!

Sorry, but how does it sound so good if you are recording CDs?

Or do you have secret master tapes on cassette?

Dear CwLondon,

I don't have any secret master tapes; in fact I haven't even got round to doing any recording yet. (I will however be recording some old reel to reel tapes on my Revox G36 later when I have time). I've just started relistening to our old back catalogue of pre-recorded cassettes that we bought all those years ago. I have just been stunned just how good the deck is. It costs but a fraction (less than 10%) of my vinyl front end.

Listening to the Dragon through the rest of my kit (Tron Meteor tube preamp, Quad IIs and Avantgarde Duos) has been a humbling experience. I never thought cassette could be this good - reel to reel yes, but cassette - surely not! We have all known how good a top vinyl front end can be, but how many of us truly believed in the old compact cassette?

With manual azimuth alignment on the recording head it gets even better when you play back a cassette that you recorded say, off an Lp on this deck as with my ZX-7, pretty impressive. The dragon as I recall may have auto azimuth on the play head. Do you know? Anyway back in the day (1985?) when I bought it a record Lp recorded on a blank cassette would smoke, hands down, the first CDs that started showing up. It took years for the music industry to sort that mess out. Some CDs sound really good these days. It’s about time as they move some of us to new formats yet again. Enjoy!

topoxfordoc

I am actually a big fan of the old Nakamichi products

I had a Nakamichi 250 in my car in high school
an Nakamich LX5 later in one of my favourite systems
and I also had 2 Dragons which I agree are very good

I used to agonize over cleaning records, stylus etc and then try to make great tapes for replay and/or the car

I think an old cassette deck or reel to reel would be great for archiving LPs

just not so sure its worth the time and effort to record digital sources which was my point

Yes I have made many tapes and listened to them while saving my records. I am 43 and if I had not used my tape player so much I would have worn out my records with the cheap TT's I had. Here is the cassette decks I have used. Starting back in 77. $100 Pioneer/$250 JVC 79/$500 2 speed BIC!!81(never would stay aligned) $500 Nak 84/$500 Aiwa in 86/HK TD 4600 in 93/Sony KA3ES in 2000 and finally a Tandberg 3014A in 2004. Cassettes have never sounded so good. Tape deck nut

Well, I'm delighted that others are enjoying old fashioned technology still. I still use LP as my primary source. I don't think I'll be using the Dragon to archive my LPs yet. I really bought it to archive some old 35 year old R2R tapes that I found of my long lost grandad for my grandma, who doesn't understand CDs - she was 90 two weeks ago!!!
So with my 'let's buy something decent hat on', I've ended up with a Dragon and a Revox G36. I haven't used tape sources for 20 years, having been a vinyl addict. Now I can listen to all those pre-recorded tapes that we never threw out in our various house moves.

Whats the freq range of cassettes anyway? no roll off or congestion anywhere?

I heard a great Tandberg Cassette deck a few weeks ago, and I was very impressed!

I had a Nak Dragon for 6 years and recently sold it but what's surprises me is that I don't miss it. The Nak Dragon is a fine deck but its way too finicky and that NAAC which is nice can be a pain in the behind. I had mine serviced at nakamichi in L.A. and it was back to new again but this is just too much mesing around with different tape when your ready to record. I picked up a Luxman K-03 deck and it sounds better than the NaK Dragon I had, also the Luxman K-03 can record alot louder than the Dragon without breaking up or distorting. One thing I liked about the Luxman K-03 is that the tapes it makes are great and play back great on most decks unlike the Dragon. Also when I opened the Dragon up and seen what was inside I kinda soured on it. Now I'm happy with the Luxman K-03 deck which sounds great and has a very nice headphone section in it, and it has some great functions as well.