The Nakamichi Dragon 3 Head Cassette Deck - The "Top Trump" Of Cassette Decks 

I am blessed that mine is still looking, working and sounding as if I just took it brand new out of the box yesterday but, in this case, yesterday was November 1993.

A good title for this video would have been "How to train your dragon."

I really missed NAKAMICHI. If they will reproduce again, I will definitely get one. Every piece is a classic

Very well explained Tony. The Dragon is in a class by itself. You know, a lot of guys miss your "deep dives" into quality machines and various cassette types. I know you must be busy with RMR these days but it would be great to see a video once a month or even once every two months on a subject of your choosing. Best regards Tony!

Brilliant video Tony! Thank you for explaining it so well how it all works.

What a machine - it has such a defined and fast-responding sound! Very well done video of it, and the track choice also works very well I think :)

Remember seeing this deck in the post exchange catalog back in the 80s, was around 5K back then! Was a status symbol.

That was very interesting, I enjoyed the video a lot. I have a reason behind writing this as I own a BX300E. I think it has an 'E'. For many years I could not use it as it had a fault, it would drop out on one channel intermittently. The place where I bought it went out of business years ago, so the device remained in its box. The device went faulty when it was returned to Nakamichi, it was returned back to me with the fault. I am a patient chap and I hoped its day would come. A couple of years ago, I found a shop and they fixed it. The problem is no more. It works just fine, better than just fine, it is amazing. However, when I took the device into the shop, I also took along all of the paperwork which consisted of everything and more on the device, I thought it would help. But, when I collected the device after the repair, no paperwork was returned. The thing about these machines is when one switches from Tape to Source and then switch back again, there is absolutely no decernable change/difference to the signal, just the minute time step because of the distance between the playback head and the record head. Stunning equipment!

With the azimuth adjustment being a mechanical one (as you showed a clip of an earlier video), how does the NACC adjust that? And surely, when it does, it would need to do it after putting in an already recorded tape. I find I'm having to adjust the azimuth (manually, in my case) when copying my old 30+ year old tapes to cd, as they were recorded in other machines now since long gone. I find the best way (by ear) is to adjust it in mono as a bad azimuth alignment tape sounds worse in mono. Usually hear a "swishing" sound with the eq changing. In stereo, it's not as noticable.

As someone who barely experienced cassettes (born in 1990), videos like these are such great troves of information of the amazing technologies my parents would have dreamed of. I've got myself a pretty decent retro-HiFi coming along now. Even managed to get back my pair of Technics MK1210s that were made in the 90s.

Audio Masterclass's David Mellor brought me here. Great video, sir. 21:11 I hoped Clutch would start playing... 😁

Love your work Tony. My Dragon is in the UK. Compared to my B215 from Revox which I know you have also and my Studer version of the same the A721, the Nak is a handraulick feast as well as an ergonomic delight. The Swiss stuff sounds extremely good but is a nightmare to use in practice. The Dragon and or CR7 are very hard acts to beat in the sonic department. If you love tape and have the means, the reward for the ear is immense. It remains long after the purchase pain has subsided. I love them all as they are able to exploit and extract the last drop of life from a substance that is more akin to rust than anything else. Long may the revival continue! Bw Mike.

Amazed at how good it sounds... Wow.

I had to pause the video at 0:50 to drool over your setup. Some keyboards I’ve been longing for are sitting in that room! ⭐️👍🏻

One of the tape decks I would love to hear do it's thing, I would be happy to even just get to see one as don't think I've ever seen one in the wild

I might not have that same deck, but I do have those headphones. My all time favourite model for working on electronic music.

I used to sell Nakamichi decks in the late 70’s when they introduced the 58x , 48x, and 680, 670ZX’s and 1000ZXL, all good but the 1000ZXL was the GOAT of the time.

Adoro mi Dragon... recientemente volví a grabar un cassette y lo hizo con una calidad extraordinaria... gracias por tu video.

Amazing sound quality!!

Wow! Flood of memories. Own a Dragon along with an RX505 and the complete Nakamichi 7 system (Minus the CR-7 which I traded for the Dragon). My speakers were a pair of black B&W CM1 & CM2, then later I purchased a pair of Apogee Centaurs. The Nakamichi system was purchase in the late 80’s while I served in the USAF stationed in Japan in my early 20’s. It took over two years to save up for and acquire it all using my E-3 (junior rank) pay grade. I bought the speakers ($1200) first, them amp($1500), pre-amp ($1800) and so on. 3-4 months would go by while I saved up for the next piece. I finally was able to speed up the process when I took a part-time job teaching English off base on the weekends. It literally took a year before I even heard my stereo! Lol! The RX505 ($800) was my first tape deck and daily driver. OMS-7 CD ($1200) player, ST-7 tuner ($600) and CR-7 ($1,100). I think the CR-7 was the better deck over the Dragon to live with and record with, but the Dragon was a sacred piece of equipment. It was truly special and a joy to own. I enjoyed watching you prep the tape for recording and to see the auto azimuth adjust with the blinking light. Put a smile on my face. I lived in the dormitories on base at the time and was known as the “Nakamichi guy”. Lol! Thank you for your video.

Great great video. Thanks man. Such Nostalgia!!! I still have my Nak deck from the mid 90s. It was a basic model, sounded great, never had an issue with it, but when MiniDisc format came out, I switched over and never went back. My favorite Cassette deck that I owned was a three head, dual motor Denon that counted in minutes and seconds. That was a very reliable terrific sounding deck. I don't remember what happened to it. It probably needed a repair at some point after I had already moved on to MiniDisc...I still have 4 MiniDisc home decks and several walkman type. All Sony. I used them in my mobile DJ business for years recording my shows and Radio station programs. It was such a great invention.

I got to hear a Nakamichi tape deck when I was a kid....and I STILL can not believe compact cassette tapes could sound so good. That said, a friend's Kenwood system was really good as well, and Pioneer....but truth be told into the early and mid 1990s, we had hit peak analog tape quality in the consumer market and people were moving on to CD and later that new m-pee-3 thing....I do miss the cassette days. Also, subscribing after this, my first video.

I repaired my technics bx 747 for 160,- Euro now. One weak ago i ordered a tascam mk vii for my studio. I love this pieces for my dark cassettes

Hi. Where would you categorize Yamaha KX-300/400/500 series decks? By my understanding these are simple and do what most listeners need. I myself own KX-480 these days and coming from 90's boom box era, am quite satisfied with the playback and recording sound quality. Where do these stack up in quality line up?

Very nice Tapedeck. Where did you take New casettes?

For me personally is the "Top Trump of Cassette Decks the ReVox B710, 2 capstan motors, 2 spooling motors all mounted on aluminum support, no belts for transmission, long capstan shafts in bronze canisters, easy to build out all PCBs. I've had it for over 40 years now, bought new in 1983, replaced all capacitors and trimpots a year ago, then complete adjustment. Fantastic sound. Nothing like this is made anymore, those days are over. Greetings Patrick.

i love it. Great explanation. Nice sound!!

All the other cassette videos not by tech moan are trash. Thanks for the great content.

id love to compare this machine against my Dual C830. They differ in price, how about sound?

🎵🎼 Thank you for the video! Cheers 🎼🎵

i have a nacamichi mr1 cassette deck whats the difference in the sound quality? compared to a $1000 mr 1 cassette deck?

Tony, nice video as usual; what is your opinion on Sony 3 head, Dolby S decks? I'm on a budget and cannot afford a dragon, but I'm curious about the ES series decks from Sony and I would like to, at some point, get back to my tapes. I used to have a Nak 700 II long time ago and really enjoyed those years of mixed tapes.

THIS IS WHAT DREAMS ARE MADE OF. THE ULTIMATE CASSETTE DECK THE KING OF ALL CASSETTE DECKS. WISH I HAD ONE what hi fi magazine

I use the MDR 7506 for my studio work for decades, I used it before it was the "MDR 7506" but was the "MDR V7". (Actualy I still keep my old MDR V7 in a drawer, repaired with duck tape, pieces of wood and wire. I'm a sensible guy :-) ) I have other headphones obviously and I regularly swap between them and my monitor speakers during my work, but the MDR7506 is a real faithfull workhorse. It's an excellent choice.

In the late 80's I had a friend that worked for a AM radio station called WBAP in Dallas. They completely upgraded their station and threw 4-5 dragons in the trash. My buddy dug them out and took them home. I bet he still has them.

Lucky enough to have owned one of these. Purchased it from a work colleague. When calibrated with a Maxell UDXL11 tape or similar quality. Recording CDs I could not detect any difference from the source to the recorded cassette. Amazing piece of technology.

Can I drive drums through it and other sounds. Like should I grab this for my studio or should I look for something more colored?

The real reason for fine azimuth adjustment is to get high frequencies of the left and right channel in phase so that the stereo image sounds correct and certain frequencies aren’t completely or partially cancelled out coming ~180 degrees out of phase between the left and right speaker. The tape head can’t be possibly mechanically turned enough to spill over other tracks, IMO. The gap in the head is quite narrow.

I have a Nakamichi RX-202 do I need a receiver to set it up or can I just connect it to some Kali Audio LP 6 powered speakers?

Wow, the shown levels actually match what I'm hearing.

May i ask where you Got this top trump card games with cassette tapes ?

Congratulations… a very good Video 👍🏼 I remember my first love… it wasn’t a girl… it was the Nakamichi Dragon 😅 Anyway Nakamichi always built unique and awesome Tapedecks. Every single one a masterpiece but the Dragon did smashed them all. Btw: Can you tell me the name of the track you’ve recorded and played on the Dragon? It’s a very good tune 👍🏼 Thank you very much and many greetings from Austria 🇦🇹

Great video, Tony. I love the cards you made! Great stuff! I also think you make a very good point about how the Dragon may be expensive, but compared to the highest end stuff for all other types of HiFi equipment, it's peanuts. Having said that, I personally don't think I want to drop two grand on a Dragon precisely because of the maintenance costs and difficulties you explained. Going into the 2020s it's only going to be harder to find people that are really qualified to work on these things. Therefore, I'd like to know what kind of decks you think offer a good balance between quality/performance and long-term reliability and serviceability. Cheers.

I love your logic regarding prices of flagship items making the Dragon a HiFi bargain, I have tried this philosophy on my wife but I'm not sure she's convinced. One major problem with many cassette decks was poor setting up at the factory. Even some top of the range models were carelessly calibrated. A bit like expecting a badly calibrated clock to keep accurate time. This was an area Nakamichi were careful to get right ensuring good performance. I recently had both my original condition cassette decks set up by Armstrong Audio repairs in Walthamstow. I discovered they were in perfect mechanical condition, which I would have expected, but badly set up, which I didn't. If you buy a top quality secondhand machine allow a few hundred quid to have it serviced and set up correctly. Cheaper machines than mine will cost less obviously. The Sony TC-K81 and Akai GX95/2 were fully stripped, overhauled and tweaked, cost me the above but the difference in performance on both is little short of incredible, so good in fact that I recently parted with my open reel. The Akai now makes recordings on chrome tape, without Dolby, that easily equal those made at 7 1/2ips on the open reel, the affordable speed ;). What more could you ask from a cassette machine. Sadly got to let the Sony go at some point to make way for another turntable. Gonna be hard having owned her for 40 years.

😄😄😆🤣😂😂🤣🤣 You guys crack me up. I learned the secret a long time ago, when I was shopping for a new player. I had trouble deciding between an NAD and a Nakamichi bx-125. Eventually bought the Nak. It was a very nice audio boutique, and no pressure to buy was in evidence. I spent quite a lot of time there just shooting the breeze & learning things. I was floored when the manager told me which which tape player had the best sound, and it wasn't the Dragon, which they carried. It was a Mitsubishi HQ HiFi vcr. Ran about $600 ok in early 80s dollars. After I picked my jaw off the floor, he explained why. Tape speed. Any cassette deck plays .15" wide tape at 1 7/8 inches per second. A typical reel to reel plays .25" tape at 2-4 times that speed. Videotape, on the other hand, plays a .5" tape at 25 inches per second. A cassette just can't match that Dragon ~$3,000 - $7,000 . HQ HiFi vcr, brand new ~$100 - $150. Do the math. 😆

Hi Tony. A question if I may. I have read that the useable lifetime of a cassette is around 30 years or so, I have several tapes that no longer play properly and it’s not my deck (Teac Z6000) as they are jamming up due to age. Does this mean that eventually this will be the death of the hobby? What are your thoughts? 1990 is now 30 years or so… Tick tick. Will all tapes and decks end up useless due to this issue, and if so, when?

I love it! but I have a doubt, does this Nakamichi Dragón sounds better than my reel to reel Pioneer RT-2022?

Lovely vid many thanks.

I have an old-timer : Akai GXC-760D. This uses a Nakamichi mechanism, 3 head, double cabstand 3 motor system. It uses the Glass Xtal heads that are un-wearable. Have to do some maintenance on it but it's still OK. Have it sins the late 80's. There was a studio version of this deck that had 2 speed and Dolby A compression. Can't find anything on it (my dad had one when I was little, he was a sound engineer). This is a bit other gear but was top of the line in the id 70's. Has no metal setting but I tried and it is working. Not optimal. I think I will make the remote for it. This is well documented in the service manual and easy to make. Have lots of other projects so ...

My Nakamichi Cassette Deck 2 has stopped playing. Everything else works fine like rewind, fast forward and all other functions. Can anyone please help to fix it myself?

I had a 3 head cassette player and recorder there good you can see the high bias recordings ive still got the technics hi fi stack 950 model still golg good, system 150 watts per channel output ,very powerful ,cant get anything like this now ,that was away back in the late eighties or early nineties ,

very nice review and general chat :) I've recently jacked in amateur radio - now thats a hobby that can bleed money, it makes collecting HIFI look inexpensive. I'm buying up faulty Nakamichi and learning to service and repair with a reasonable success rate so far. Fortunately a lot of the test equipment and workshop equipment is transferable to the new hobby.

how they managed to get good results in recording without dolby hx pro?

According to the Spectroid app on my phone, that 400 Hz tone was actually 393 Hz.

Had a ZX-9, which was considered a Dragon Killer.. I blind tested 15 people 30 years ago listening through my old AKG150 Headphones, using the Nak, a Dual 604 turntable with a Shure V5 type3 cartridge and a Technics CD Player. I recorded the album 'White Winds' from Andreas Wollenweider to a metal cassette with dolby C, from vinyl. I also had the same material on CD as well.. Short story: no one was able to hear any difference predictably; including myself! Once calibration is done on a high-end Nak, any cassette's sound is indistinguishable from the original material.

Great Cassette-Deck 👍👍👍

I own a Nakamichi Dragon as of 2 weeks ago thanks to my local Goodwill store. I have used cassette decks since I was a kid in the 1980s but I had never calibrated a single deck myself. Thank you showing how to do such a procedure. In my opinion not only does it seem incredibly simple to do it also seems fun. Who wouldn't want to squeeze every bit of performance from a common type 1 cassette? I do.

Thank you for the informstion. I don't know why high quality cassette decks are no longer made.

very informative

The machine of dreams 😮

Great video, as usual... except every time I see the formidable Dragon in your videos I get jealous again. 🙂

i’ve always thought, if the deck can make a good recording on the newer Maxell URs it can make a good recording on anything

still's sound's good like it did when it came out back in 1982, but like you said a lot of hard work and needs a lot of love

Isn't it interesting to listen to hear 2010-2020 music from a cassette deck, where the source is FLAC, Mp3 or streaming ? Excessive loudness is mitigated, but the slight distortion due to its dynamics sounds is next to desireable. Even the latest tracks brings me back 20-30 years ago.

Very nice

Want and NEED!! 🙏

What about nagra?.

I don’t know a lot about Audio and have been trying to get into it. Something tells me I should buy one of these is good condition before someone else does

I have a Nakamichi Dragon that I bought new in 1985 that is near mint (around 1,000 hours of run time) and planning to sell it. I paid $3,800.00 CDN and I think I can get around $3,000.00 CDN for it. It is the BEST auto reverse cassette deck ever made. The auto azimuth feature is simply incredible and it brings the best out of any cassette you can throw at it, you hear the improvement in sound quality as it adjust the heads.

I have two of them, great machines.

I was in high school in the early 90s and had dreamed of getting a Nak. I could only afford a basic Sony deck. Though that deck still made a lot better mix tapes than the usual boombox or mini systems most of my friends used.

Second your video and perfect speech in the end

Dead killing this video!

Which do you prefer on the Dragon, Dolby B or C or no Dolby?

I played a Justin Bieber - Purpose Cassette in my 2006 mustang. And my friend was surprised when i popped out the cassette. Yes we ain't that old : P He was like all that bass was from that?????? He said it sounds amazing and clear and that the bass was a hell of a lot better than cd's. Had like a warmth to it in your ears. Record it from a high quality source and you'll get great recordings! If your making mixtapes on regular stereo's or the new Cassette players at Target/Walmart and not using Dolby B/C while recording. Turn Dolby off on your car or home stereo's. And it''ll be clear and boom. That's the main thing people get wrong. Hahaha yep. : )!

wouldnt you want to saturate the tape fully tho? as in say calibrate the type1 tape to +2-4db, type2 tape to +4-6db and metal tape to +8-10db? so it plays back louder on walkmans, and then you wont have to put the vol up as much on the walkman, so save battery ;) +12db is you really wanna push the type4 tapes

I have the RX-202. Put on new belts and idler tire it sounds great. People love the auto tape flip action! Sold my 580. Nakamichi for the win.

what is a top tier playback cassette deck that is more reliable than the Nakamichi Dragon? I want HiFi Cassette play but I'm afraid to invest in a Dragon because like you said they're getting harder and more expensive to work on as time goes on. Great video, thank you

Wow I never knew cassettes could sound this great, well at least if you had the money for this. Well, I only have a hand full of cassettes that I need to digitize, I guess buying a Dragon would be a tad overkill for me :D

now back to my budget 70e boombox

It is EXACTLY 400hz! I think you 'remember' the testtone of 440hz in your mind.

solid deck

The ridiculous amount of money people are selling these for is insulting. Hipsters ruined everything...

I feel lucky to own 3 of them 😂

From what they say it is a very good deck, but the truth is the external appearance doesn't tell me anything, I even notice it is very overloaded, in truth if I had to invest in Nakamichi I would do it in a 680ZX which is absolutely beautiful, thanks for the very interesting review

क्या यह दिखाया जा रहा कैसेट देख भारत में भी उपलब्ध है है तो इसकी क्या कीमत और कहां उपलब्ध हो सकता है और इसके साथ में कुछ एक्स्ट्रा पार्ट से वह भी मिल सकते हैं जैसे हेड मोटर कंट्रोलर और बेल्ट और आईसी

The Revox B215S was a dragon killer in my opinion. Both they are the best cassette decks ever made, I personally prefer the Revox.

Of course it's not going to make a type 1 tape sound exactly like the source, but the degradation is graceful and extremely smooth.

I admit that this is the best deck ever made but thePRICE IS A LEG AND ARM!

WOOOW

The Nakamichi sound is more than a slogan. It's a fact. All the way to their last DR series in the late 90s

Revox B215 is superior because the recording matches exactly the source. NAK's promoted their decks as sounding better than the source, because they new most recorded off FM radio and thus a NAK was the best for improving a source sound. However Revox is most accurate to the source of any deck made. Did I say a B215-S price in '91 was $3700 USD, the most expensive cassette deck ever made in history.

i bought this one for 20 euro and most happy man

Ah, my first "crush" that was not a girl, the Dragon.

I don't think your explanation of azimuth is all correct. As I understand, the problem is the angle of the head gap in relation to the tape/track. If it is more than 0, it leads to cancellation in reading the shortest magnetic field changes stored to the tape. So it results in loss of high frequencies. This should happen way before the head moves too far out of the track as you've shown. But correct me, if i'm wrong.

यह कॅसेट डेक इंडीया में कैसे कहा मिलेगा.

Hi Tony a person on RU-vid has just bought a Nakamichi Dragon from a thrift store for 29 dollars which only needs minor repairs!!

ドラゴン　大事にしてくださいね。

Pf, its ok, but it is not a Tandberg or Revox ,checked my Tandberg 3034 after ten years, 11 - 26,65 khz after ten years of service. -15db, Maxell UD XL II

I just checked and that is 393Hz, not 400Hz.