Which Nakamichi to choose?

melbguyone,

I recognize that there are probably decks that rival the performance of the Nakamichi cassette decks. I recall seeing a Tandberg 3014 at a stereo store decades ago and wondering how it sounded. I never sat down to listen and I can only speak to decks I have owned. Also, I have owned Nak amps, preamps, tuner and CD player (OMS 7). I once took home a Nakamichi Dragon CD player and DAC. I decided that I had too much stereo equipment and returned it. My mistake! I am very comfortable recommending Nakamichi cassette decks, and accept that there are many other decks worth considering.

My 2 favorites from yesteryear were the CR-7A and the BX-300.

This is the deck  I have presently;


        https://kenrockwell.com/audio/sony/tc-ka3es.htm

But since I have a Technics 2 track reel, I only play the deck to make sure it's working properly.

Jeez,so much angst!
I nearly passed on this after reading "gilding a turd" how ignorant!

Nakamichi 582 in my main rig .

With the right recordings they do sound as good as my vinyl.
Of course bad recordings suck.
But that is true of vinyl, CD etc too.

Sure the medium has its faults, the bigger decks do require more maintenance than say a CD player but it is far from a dead medium imho.

I dug out a demo tape from my band from 1989 and ran it on the nak, sounded pretty darn good to me! So that’s what near 30 year old tape?