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Nakamichi Cassette Decks

I would like to hear from anyone who can tell me if the Nakamichi decks are better than say a upper end Denon DRW 800A, And second is there a big dirrence in the way the different models sound in playback mode. I' thinking of buying a Nakamichi MR2
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amg56's avatar
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amg56
887 posts
 

I was in a very cordial email conversation with a gent from Russia who was selling his Nakamichi 1000zxl. I almost bought a Dragon from Slovakia due to the voltage similarities Eu and Aust. have but pulled out from a not right feeling.

The Russian seller agreed that the 1000zxl was a better machine, but by not so much. The 1000zx was a bigger more formidable unit. Unfortunately, I was bought out overnight, and I was ready to fork out the big dollars for it. Such is the time difference between us.

The next day, ruing the loss, I rationalised why I was ready to spent so much on what would have been an isolated unit in my Audio setup. I binned my complete cassette (and my Wife's), 8 months ago. What was my incentive? To own a historic museum piece. And that was it.

I play a lot of vinyl and own 5 TT's, including a Nakamichi Dragon CT. Not the TX1000 darn, but a great player all the same. :}

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uberwaltz
13,381 posts
 
Still very happy with my 582 which I bought mainly to play my old collection of tapes AND because it was so freaking cheap it would have been criminal not to buy it! Have it hooked up with a pair of Nordost White Lightning interconnect to my main system.
On many tapes the sq is very close to a vinyl version of same album.
livin_262002
183 posts
 
@vinny55  not at the moment as I have had these decks restored very recently. The BIG Nak I bought directly from Willy Hermann and the Tandberg were restored by (Late) Ken McQueen. I'll let you know if I change my mind ;).

I'd agree that the 682 ZX ( not the 680) comes close to 1000zxl in PB only. I've not heard a better recorder than the 1000zxl. It boils down to the way the 1000 calibrates the deck for the tape it's going to record on.


vinny55
259 posts
 
@livin_262002 actually the guy who owned dragons 3014a revoxes alpine zx7 zx9 1000zxl 700s 680 and 682 says that his 680zx sounds better than 682zx. And the closest to the sound of the 1000zxl. 

takashic
20 posts
 

I am floored at the length of this thread!  This says a lot about Naks in general...although I haven't used mine in years, I still remember vividly the differences in the top end Naks and the others, along with other manufacturers' machines.  Although I liked other decks, from various manufacturers such as Teac, Tandberg, etc., and despite having owned several other decks, I ended up with only Naks.  They just sounded better to me.  After selling off everything but my last two, a Dragon and a 700ZXL, I did some A-B testing.

(I had two 700ZXLs but sold one to a friend - talk about seller's remorse...)

Bottom line: to my ears, the Dragon was a superb deck, that reproduced music from top to bottom beautifully. 

HOWEVER, again, to my ears, the 700ZXL had a more 'organic', smoother sound...and could reproduce bass notes that you couldn't even hear.  I believe they tested down to some absurd frequency, like 11 Hz.  You need a good subwoofer to really hear, and feel, what they can do.

One other thing to note: the 700ZXL was designed and built with a cost-no-object philosophy that seemed to end with the death of Etsuro Nakamichi.  The amount of shielding and dampening material used, and the silence of the mechanism itself, were beyond reproach - and I am certain that it added to the quality of the reproduced sound.

When playing tapes from other decks, though, unless the 700ZXL's heads matched up perfectly with the other deck's, the Dragon won this one, hands down.  The heads were designed to follow the tracks, maximizing performance from all tapes.

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