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Opinion on Nakamichi azimuth tape decks please

I am thinking of buying a Nakamichi tape deck with the azimuth head adjustment. It will be used mostly for playing of old tapes (that's why I need azimuth). Nak made few of those: 670ZX, 680, 680ZX, 681ZX, 682ZX, Cassette Deck 1, CR-7A, DR-1, ZX-7, ZX-9 and the Dragon. I would not like to spend a lot of money so the Dragon, CR-7A, and ZX-7/9 are excluded. Any opinion on the others? I assume all of them have excellent sound quality; is it true?

I have read that the 680 models have very reliable transport mechanism and other components, but they were made almost 30 years ago. Anyone have recent experience with them? The Cassette Deck 1 was made in 1990-92 (don’t know about DR-1); how reliable are they? Do all of the old Naks require frequent calibration and servicing, and how expensive is it?

Any opinions will be greatly appreciated.
prophos

Showing 2 responses by ghostrider45

ghostrider45
449 posts
 
Ditto 80stech's recommendation. The Dragon is the only cassette deck that automatically aligns the playback head to the azimuth of the tape being played - on the fly. Since 1/60 degree azimuth error is enough to deaden the treble response of a cassette tape, this makes all the difference.
ghostrider45
449 posts
 
My memory matches Ktrogers'.

The Dragon was unique in that one channel(left if I remember correctly) of the playback head fit two pole piece sub assemblies with independent coils and gaps into the space normally occupied by one pole piece. Since both sub assemblies read the same track on the cassette, it followed that the head azimuth was correct when the output of both sub assemblies was in phase. A tilted head would cause one sub assembly to read the track a few milliseconds ahead of the other, resulting in phase difference.

The Dragon used a phase detector and servo system to continuously adjust playback head azimuth to maintain zero phase error and thus near perfect azimuth alignment.

This also means that you get great results from Dolby B and C noise reduction, since they magnify treble loss resulting from azimuth misalignment. Also tape playback quality is the same in both tape directions - this is usually a problem for auto reversing decks.

The record azimuth alignment featured on other Nak decks simply allowed one to adjust record head azimuth to match the playback head azimuth. It assumed that the playback head azimuth was correct, and provided no help for tapes recorded on other machines.
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