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
I would get 680ZX or 682ZX or ZX-7. ZX-9 is great but is usually very expensive. 680ZX in good condition should probably be around $500. I would not save $200-$300 on deck, the difference may be big, depending on what you record and play and the tape you use. They sound good even with entry level audiophile cables but respond well to cable upgrades. I have $1350 cables on my 682ZX, yes much better than with $800 that I used before. But again, it sounds very good with $100 cables as well.
Hello. I'm new in the Cassette Decks World. I'd like to get a good cassette player, and I have read Nakamichi is one of the best, if not the best. Do you think BX-125 or BX-150 would be a good choice?
True. There were not as many HKs made for sure. If I knew what I know now back then I would have got the CD 491 because the TOTL Naks were to expensive.
I’m not familiar with the HK CD491. The thing I would remind you about is that there are still Nakamichi techs that can tune up an old deck to be just like new. I’m not sure that’s true for the HK CD491 (Harmon Kardon, I assume) deck you mentioned. Also, what are the odds of finding one, or replacement parts for that matter.
From what I have read when the ZX9 came out it became Nakamichi's reference deck. A sleeper deck to research is the HK CD491. Half the price with very close performance or even better than the Dragon but I don't seriously believe the later. I have one and a Dragon but never got to compare the 2 because one or the other was down.
My wife insisted that I sell my 2000 cassettes (including box sets) for $2300 just prior to moving. I should add that it included a mint ZX-9. I kept a couple of hundred to use with my RX-505. As l expected, I regret selling them. I still have dreams of chasing down a 1000 ZXL, but I saw one on eBay yesterday for $25K. I’ll have to really think about that one.
Whatta ya know wolf, same Nak (BX300) I bought from Brooks Berdan thirty years ago. Had it rebuilt at the Nak service center in L.A. once, still works and sounds fine. a good partner to my Revox A77 reel-to-reel.
I had a Nak 1000 ii I had it for years until a belt broke which was fixed by Nak service in New York....I think I traded it for a Rek 0 Kut turntable ....memories faded. It was a 3 head deck - sound was fine...only the slightest increase in hiss...
I used my trusty but retired BX300 for years (I took it out recently so my wife could listen to an old recording of her kids and hey...it still works!) as an important part of my hifi rig, and also as a mixdown deck for recordings I did on a TEAC 8 track porta-studio...the Nak is an amazing machine with the best Dolby I ever used, with the three heads allowing you to hear that fact instantly.
Nakamichi cassette decks are magical. A techology that had matured gracefully. Engineers poured their inspiration and sweat into a medium that originally was for onky dictation into a hi-fidelity medium. However finicky with detail to maintaince involved and tape selection. When everything is in tune then you have a sonic fooler that can give u absolute realism.
$200 to refurbish a deck is very cheap. Don’t wait, get it done! If you have any commercially recorded tapes, listen and you won’t be disappointed. So, for $220, you’ll have great sound. Maybe not SOTA, but very good. Lucky you!
I bought a LX5 at a Lion's sale for $20. I took it to the local audiophile store (small, been in business for 40 years) and they said they could refurbish it for $200. They said: "I've had a look at your Nakamichi cassette deck and it will need a few things to get it up and running again. Belts are in need of replacement, but in addition, the pinch roller arms are ceased up (unit's been unused for some time?) and will need lubrication. Unfortunately access to them and disassembly is somewhat labour intensive. It could quite possibly involve a service charge of $200.00 to get this fine old girl up and running again. Please advise if this meets with your expectations in regards to repair cost." I want to use it to transfer some old live music cassettes into my system. I am ok if eq needs to be adjusted (because tapes were not originally recorded on a Naka)-- I run a recording studio and plan to master them anyway. As well, would like to occasionally track parts on the Naka and then digitize them and include them into projects I am working on. I'd appreciate any feedback on what quality deck I might have after this servicing was done...
There is a Nak Dragon for sale near me, he wants $1600, it has been for sold for at least a month or so. They are bit like (to me) the HD V-Rod motorcycle, great to look at, but nothing else. I have a Nak DR-3 tucked away in a far off country. How does a Pioneer CT-F1000 (fully serviced $600 also a local sale) compare to the Naks?Cassette tapes go for 25c/50c at my local thrift store.
I’ve own lots of decks and recorded a number of live bands to two track cassette. I’ve owned Tandberg, Nak (4 different ones), Denon, Sony, Kyocera, Fisher, and others. Naks are good but if you want as good or better sound the sleeper is a Sony TCK71. You can pick one up for 150 and it plays as well of better than a Nak.
The styling preferences are really a matter of opinion...to each their own taste, as they say. I was impressed enough back then to buy both, although I primarily purchased the Dragon on the basis of performance. The heads on both decks have very little wear, since most of my listening was done on the other 700ZXL and my Pioneer RT-701 reel to reel decks. The 700ZXL with the most wear was sold off, as was the Pioneer, leaving both remaining decks in excellent condition. Both have very little head wear, and both have all original boxes, packaging, etc., including the accessory pack and sealed tapes (for the 700ZXL). I also never played tapes from any other person's deck, as tapes can pick up contaminants that can increase head wear. Yes, I was one of "those" audiophiles...but except for the unavoidable belt rot, both decks are gems. Neither had been played much, if at all, since the beginning of the current millennium. Last time I turned them on, all the lights came on, but the tapes did not advance. At that point, I turned them off and checked the internet...found out about the belt rot issue...and unplugged them. Since my source is now an Esoteric X-01 Limited CD player, I'm torn about restoring either or both decks...
The 700ZXL looks WAY better than the Dragon - and the LX series took their styling cues (the dark charcoal/black with brushed aluminum finish) from the 700ZXL.
This 700ZXL looks like a microwave, but not as a cassette deck :) Dragon is state of the art design in my opinion
Take a close look at the heads and see which one is in better shape. There are donor decks that pop up on eBay all the time that potentialy have decent heads but it's a chance like buying an engine to replace the one in your car. My garage says mileage isn't given in their experience.
I agree. The 700ZXL looks WAY better than the Dragon - and the LX series took their styling cues (the dark charcoal/black with brushed aluminum finish) from the 700ZXL. Sonically, I am considering selling the Dragon off "as-is" and restoring the 700ZXL. Some folks like the Dragon better, but I guess that's a matter of taste...
Restore the 700ZXL. It looks way cooler man. Its silver! My only critique of the Dragon is it is dark and you need a light source to see all the buttons. I have never actually compared those two side by side but from my readings there wouldn't be much difference. Hey the LX3 and LX5 are also winners in the looks department.
I hear you, blueranger...there's nothing like hearing a top quality cassette tape (or reel to reel). I opted for the 700ZXL because the Dragon had not yet been introduced, and the 1000ZXL looked like a piece of military gear, with the sliders and whatnot. Also, I had bad experiences with sliders over the years, so I tended to avoid them. I was ecstatic with the performance of the 700ZXL, and bought another a few months after getting my first. A couple of years later I bought the Dragon, and after ensuring proper break-in, started testing them both. The differences were quite significant, especially given the outstanding specs of the Dragon (not to mention the advanced technology). Time and again, however, the 700ZXL outperformed the Dragon, especially on the most demanding things available at the time (just released CDs, but primarily difficult to record vinyl, such as Sheffield Labs releases). On the Sheffield version of "America", the clarity of the transients was amazing...but the underpinning of the lowest frequencies was revelatory. I eventually sold off one of my 700ZXLs and kept the Dragon, though, since I sometimes listened to tapes from other machines.
At this point, however, I am considering whether it is worth restoring both units, since most of my listening is now done via CDs...
Wow I have read a lot about the mystic of the 700 ZXL! A beautiful machine also. I have the 700 II and its a great machine. It's nick name I hear is the "toaster". Its a good playback machine. Non metal record capable however. I just found out tonight that my Dragon has gone through its last checks at the bench and will be shipped out this week. The tech scolded me for letting the punch rollers get so dirty so he is helping me out by disconnecting a switch that allows engagement of the transport with the tape cover off. Now I can place the cotton swap on a moving roller like I do on my Tandberg. Awesome. There is a lot of history and nostalgia with cassettes. I have many fond memories recording through the years. I remember dreaming and looking at the salesman showing the TOTL decks to me in the 80s and could only hope to have such a wonderful piece of equipment one day. Now I can actually own these 2nd hand beauties. Have them restored and they live!. My Dragon has been down a couple of years so it will be nice to have it up and running. I'm an audiophile and do listen critcally more than I should. Stereophile used to put cassette decks down. I know with the right tape and calibrated machine it can be magical. Musical. A snob could bash it and put it down. Its something about the machine actually moving the tape thats so cool. Yes I'm a tape head and I stand proud.
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.
@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.
@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.
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.
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. :}
just got my deck from bdp24.... love it true naks play best stuff recorded on them most of my needle drop tapes were made on a Tandberg 440a but they sound very good and it has been a blast going thru my long dormant 80’s tape collection, even found the LiL Feat tape I made for my future wife before first date....
I just confirmed with a serious die hard nak collector 680 series next best thing to 1000zxl including gold limited which he owns and every other nak and other high end decks. He said 680series are the only nak decks the deep bass comes closest to the 1000zxls
I have never recorded anything on my 582 but its playback of "good" prerecorded cassettes is very very good to my ears in my system. But is wholly dependant on the mastering just like vinyl.
"Tinny" might be the wrong word, but definitely "thinner" sound. It didn't do justice to acoustic instruments and it was fully refurbished by Willy. Dragon has it's strengths (NAAC) but it's definitely not the best recorder.
I've owned my share of decks; Nak RX202, Nak Dragon, Nak ZX-7, Tandberg 3014A, Nak 1000zxl. Sold all Naks except for the 1000zxl and the two Tandberg 3014As. 1000zxl is the only Nak I love the sound of, the rest were a little on the tinny side.
nrchy is correct. I have owned many Nak decks: CR-7A, Dragon, RX-505, ZX-9. I sold all but the RX-505, and still regret selling any of them. They are getting hard to find in good condition, and the prices reflect that. Willy Hermann went through each of the decks and they sound better than CD, to my ears!
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