Nakamichi were the literal mad scientists of audio equipment. Always innovative, and always making sure they put the best into everything they did. Hope to run across one of these someday.
I had one of these units many years ago. Sounded great, relatively easy to use. I found it in a dumpster in back of the apartment building where I used to live. I took it to our local hi fi shop to have it checked out and repaired.
The auto reverse on this was a great design. The tape heads would never move azimuth or zenith because the door was doing the work, not the heads rotating 180 degrees. They're awesome decks, too. Too bad there's not much of a market for them anymore. If set up correctly, cassettes do sound amazing.
top recorder indeed, but for playback..i must admit i 'd go bx125, because of its 40-300 hz response, probably a personal preference rather than accuracy issue
Is that the legendary tapedeck that shoot the cassette out? and then the cassette turns around in the air and land safely in the tapedeck again? I saw that many many year's ago in a local electronic and Hifi shop... crazy..
@@samier09 The Dragon actually keeps the cassette in place and just reverses direction without turning the head. It is using a 4-track head to achieve that and any possible azimuth error is eliminated through it's unique auto-alignment. The other mechanism with automatic cassette turning is also amazing.
Yes and no... Azimuth is about making record and playback tracks aligning. By this complete cassette case rotation you can make azimuth about sides A/B match easily because the head stay there but the rec/play azimuth alignment problem remains and here's where the automatic micro aligning system on most Nakamichi decks comes into play
The 80s was the decade of real over excess but in a cool way! There was a deck like this in the film "9 and a half weeks" and Mickey Rourke flips the tape in pure minimal 80s penthouse apartment yuppy style! The yuppies, be a great name for a band!
This actually isn't excess. Auto-reverse itself may be excess, and thats a valid argument, but if you are speaking about auto-reverse methods, this wasn't excess at all, it was proper engineering, as you didn't get any azimuth misalignment with this method.
Plastic is not well put in place. :-( Plzzzzz, put it in place. It's very very easy to do. BTW I got my RX202 running at last. It was a corroded/oxidized reverse switch. So not the idle tyre (geared), not the reel-motor and not the cam-motor. Just a silly switch. I jiggled the switch from left to right and .... voila, it worked again. Fantastic music-maker.
Видел однажды автомагнитолу этой фирмы, которая могла крутить и CD и аудиокассету, т.е. в магнитофон можно было вставлять или то или другое. Любили в накимиши извращаться :)
AKAI made a deck in the early 70's that was auto-reversing and used the same principle as this machine, but on a horizontal plane. The tape, upon reaching it's end, would be lifted up and transferred to the rear of the machine where, inside a chamber, the tape would physically flip and be returned to the front of the machine and resume playback. Intriguing concept, and tape head alignment need only be for the forward direction.
я тоже не видел..автореверс было видимо проще реализрвать..вращающуюся головку и реверс двигателя..Ну а этот экземпляр просто шедевр!!! Вот так жизнь прожил а увидел только сегодня
How about Nakamichi 1000ZXL Gold Limited? www.ebay.com.sg/itm/Nakamichi-1000-ZXL-Limited-Gold-Vintage-Analog-Cassette-Tape-Deck-1000ZXL-/322185303104 ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-K9pZeRbawwg.html
I was in the middle of watching Scream 3 the movie and spotted this deck in the background 1 hour and 10 min in. It was an interesting find. I was watching and saw audio equipment in the background and I also watched this video a while back and noticed something familiar and I was like " Hey is that what I think it is!?"
I have this run thru my Macintosh and my electric static speakers == its the best sounds at a price that was unparalleled in its day -- i am still amaze of the sound quality it still to this very day produces
Me iether untill a couple days ago i was all shit that hot word up is fresh n cool classic never saw one at my time maybe to expensive only rich people got it i think at the time cus i never saw one in the 80 oh 90 not that one
@@evgeniypopov639 Да, я тоже брал хорм и метал, в основном TDK, Sony и Maxell. Сейчас их скупают по 300 р запечатанные, а продают от 500р-700р. Но это не винил, уже эру кассет не вернуть.
i just got one of these. i had to let it warm up it had been sitting in a warehouse forever. After warming up it started functioning. it has trouble with FF which is prob a belt or idler, and when it reverses it flips the tape then puts it back out and flips it back around. It does play and rew though.
Reginald Bowls Its a gimmick but a cool one. If this guy was interested in sound quality he would not be using a low end cassette like in the video. He used that for looks only. Same with the flipping. If you liked music you would not sit there flipping the side over and over. Its a toy to him, he all excited flipping the cassette so much he does not even bother to listen to the music.
During the time this machine was made, Nakamichi was like the 'king' of cassette tape playback. Anyone who wanted any decent sounding playback would most likely upgrade to a Nakamichi, including those for the car.
+Reginald Bowls Yes they are low quality tapes that look good to some. They have ZERO to do with sound quality, they are just eye candy for the weak. And as good as these decks where considered they are no better than the source which is CD or Record. They can't be. So if you are "Obsessed with audio quality" a tape deck of any kind is not going to make a scratchy record sound better, or a CD sound better. I got one just because its old, like a antique. For tapes just get any Teac SA, or Maxell. Don't waste money on Metal tapes, they are being sold by rip off artists on Ebay.
I saw a RX-505 on you tube and was blown away by the "Cool Factor" on the auto reverse flip! I love it and just bought one off ebay for 330.00. The tape you have in is not a Teac Open Reel but it looks like one. What brand is that?
Nakamichi borrowed an idea of the physical CC reverse from an early BGM system AKAI CS-55D Invert-o-Matic in horizontal plane. Implemented just a vertical reverse mech for visual display.
Смысл переворота кассеты в том, что так механика точнее работает. Не надо выставлять головку. Потом придумали четырехполосные плавающие голвки, и им по барабану в какую сторону движется лента
Transparent panel need a little bit fixing) Reverse looks like OH MY GOOD!!!))) Very cool process!!! Thanks for video!!! PS my "like" turns your rate to 1000,;)
with the right equipment you can record HIGH resolution audio on cassette's. the best cassette type for hq audio is the chrome cassette... I think it's type 4.. you just need a good tapedeck and an extra DAC....it's crazy how far the analog tech already was in the 1980's.
Chrome are type 2, Metal are type 4. Metal are excellent, but rare. You can still achieve decent results with Chrome tape and a proper deck with Dolby S and a self calibration function.
Mine does the same thing with the outer plastic cover wedged out when tape is seated. It’s clearly supposed to go flush in. Any words on how to fix that, or is it just indicative of this model?