Thanks for this clear demonstration. To save some space you can buy (not expensive) the NAK T-100 audio analyzer software. It has a generator and scope. Works fine for me.
I happened to see this video of yours and found it very entertaining as well as educational… I avoided Nakamaichi’s due to reputation that they are hard to work on and very expensive. Plus I’m a big fan of all things Dolby S TOTL 3 head cassette decks. So in 2012 when I came back to tapes after about 20 years hiatus. Started getting my hands on Aiwa xk-s 7000,9000. Sony tc-ka5es, pioneer ct-93, t1000s, etc etc. When COVID hit, I took a chance got my first Nakamichi, RX-505 and wow I was blown away and could flip that tape all day long 😂. Now in 3 years I have 12 Nakamichi’s the CR7A,CR4A,CR3A. ZX-9, 682ZX, 680,660ZX,BX-300 which is my favorite cause of the bass bump! MR-1B, last acquired items: RX-202 and of course the Dragon… So I became Nak convert but still love all things Dolby S as well… Keep continuing your videos I’ve learn a lot..
Interesting tour of the deck. Really like the adjustments. Especially the height. Question - wouldn't adjusting type 1 bias be more consistent at 10khz. Unless its a super ferric there's going to be significant variation at 15k across differing type-1s. Even at -20db. Second question - those two inductions - are they not 19khz MPX traps for the Dolby chip? They could be resonance adjustments, however that's usually done with a ceramic cap across the playback head. Anyway thanks for the tour. Like the deck.
I follow the official Nak procedure which is 15K on all 3 tape types, but some will recommend 10K. I've only ever had problems with cheap shitty Type Is, decent quality ones usually have no problems and are flat through -20db. Fun fact: every single tape is different, so if you REALLY want it dialed in, you have to adjust for every individual tape - not tape model, I mean literally EVERY tape. You'd be surprised how much variation you'll encounter. As with everything we adjust for a compromise to cover the best range. If you are at that level of nerdery, you need a ZX7/9, CR7 or Dragon so you can calibrate every tape you record. The MPX trap inductors are down near the front panel. I checked the layout, the HF peaking adjustment is the pair of pots at the back, the inductors you see are for the bias trap. Some Naks have inductors for HF peaking so I assumed this one was the same, oops. That's another feature I didn't mention - Nak gives you an adjustment (or a series of solder bridges) to adjust the HF peaking to compensate for head wear.
very nice job and super easy with this unit.I ve got 2 JVC DD-5,the common is could be seperate the bias calibrate to every cassette,the high frequency could be adjusted,as playbach frequecy at minus 20 db with 10 khz 1khz must be calibrated the same issue. but missi 4 trimmer pots ,i ve got only 2 nor 6 for record level.So far i m a poor man without scope,i ve got 20 deck every could be callibrated as well,the problem is when changin cassette from one to other must soun as same,not always,THE tape deks like turtables pickup .the sendust heads sounded more fine bass than amophous etc.WITH CALLIBRATION I VE GOT ONLY 1 PROBLEM WHEN CALIBRATE THE TDW-541 SOUNDS GREAT,WITH ANOTHER DEVICE -3 DB UNDER THE LEVEL.
Some small notes to add: Adjusting bias is not a "more is better/higher level" thing. Bias results in a bell curve of the high frequency response. You'll notice quite quickly that there is a peak and on either side of the peak (lower or higher bias) the 15Khz tone will rapidly drop in amplitude. So don't be tempted to just keep adding bias to increase high frequency level, the opposite will happen. Classic transport 3 head Naks to watch for: LX-5, ZX-7, ZX-9, 670, 680, Dragon, 700 Mark II, 1000 Mark II, RX-505 3 head Naks to AVOID (no tape monitoring): 660, 581, 582 has tape monitoring but feels like a Fisher Price toy. There's a long standing myth perpetrated by Nak haters that Nakamichi uses a non-standard equalization. This is false, and it's been around so long that Nakamichi published an official rebuttal with tech data in the 1970s. The myth originated from their competitors slagging them off and trying to convince people that the reason Nak decks sounded better was because they were somehow cheating.
Realy therre were different standards for equalzation in USA and Europe - no any cheating. Just check other my comment. By my personal imprssion I prefer even that which is not matching normal tapes I only can't say which is which. I think in 70 ties Japan production was targeting Americans
Hello, nice detailed video. In my opinion on the left side it is just the erase head, Both record and playback heads are in the same "boxy" sandwitch. Correct me if i am wrong. Merry Christmass!
Merry Christmas! The erase head with the white plastic is to the left yes, the record head is the smaller head right next to the playback head. However the point is they are mounted separately with individual adjustments, on other brands they just have the record and playback combined into a single monolithic head with no way to adjust the positions independently (so it has 2 heads, but in a single body).
Are you still around fixing the Nakamichi Tape Deck? My old Nakamichi ZX-9 that I purchased new in the 1980s is not working anymore for more than 10 years now. It still power on but not playing or rewinding or fast forward no more. I was thinking maybe it's the belt. Maybe you can give me some ideas on where to look or how to fix it myself. I really missed that deck now and I do not want to sell it but I have no money to get it fix. I am a senior now and my hobby is listening to music since I was a kid. How much do you charge to fix and how do I send it to you?
Nothing exotic going on. I use RCA to BNC adapters and connect with normal RCA cables to the inputs/outpus. You don't need to use compensated probes at audio frequencies.
Never had any nakaas. Wayy happy with highend AiwA. Many tapeheads loves the rec guality. As good ,or little better. No joke. And the pricetag, nakaas are hilarious highend prizes,thoug. U happy wit nakaas? Good for u,but hey,their not the best.Of the best. If u rich,then go naka,go!! Happy Taping!!
Tandberg cassette decks are known to be better. I once played with a Nakamichi dragon and no matter how I adjusted it I couldn't make it sound the same as the source. I could with the CR-7A. Compare to a Tandberg TCD-3014 and you will se (hear) that the Tandberg is better.
As far as I get noiseless recording sounding not different then original from source which I get confirmed by ears with absolutely Hi FI system I do not make own measurements and calibrations I put 95% effort to system sounding because it is hughly absorbing. If system is not precision then non perfection of reproduction may even be a gain Example I have two almost identical Telefunken decks only one has added NR system High Com, other not. . And while I play original tapes in Dolby system the second of them reproduces in both channels identicaly stronger sub-low frequency. and first just normal. Without using Dolby it like only half. I suspect may be producer changed the correction to different standard used for different market. So I am happpy with first one which sounds unusual due to very deep bass . If I wolud make corrections I could loose it and miss it.
Nakamichi's sound great but I hate their plastic components in the transport mechanism section and of the course the bad orange capacitors. I owned a few but will never buy one again because of their bad quality. There are much better decks out there.
It's a strange hill to die on considering that there are still millions of other cheaper cassette decks out there that beat the CR-3A in terms of overall flatness of frequency response, signal-to-noise ratio and wow and flutter.
Lol... no.. I have the JVC V1010, the best deck they ever made, why it built quality is great, in terms of sound it is nowhere near a mid-range Nak. I never had a Revox (Studer) but man, that deck designed by a bunch of Engineers that seems like they never seen any other deck in their life before... so many bad mechanical designs and unusual circuitry...
@@maxfactor4209 Studer/Revox is very nicely constructed and have rugged transport mechanisms... but otherwise are pretty average decks. I can see the argument if you just went by build quality alone. They do make some nice reel to reels this side of a Nagra.
My workflow is, replace all elco's specially in pre Amp and Power Supply (voltage check). New belts, new pinchroller, cleaning Full Erase Head and R/W Head. Check grooves in R/W Head. Using original reference tape from device brands (Sony for instance). Normaly not available for end consumers. I don't use 3rd party reference tapes. Using non metal screwdrivers for electronic adjustment. Oscilloscope: probe 1:10. Setup (Azimuth) put on X/Y for LJ display. Lock the adjustment screws when finnished. I prefer copper chassis made devices. Because today there are many HF devices (smartphones) around I build a fully copper shield inside metal or wooden case. Demagnetisation R/W Head is an option to consider.
![I.N "HALLUCINATION" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/n5B5q1Hwt_U/mqdefault.jpg)
Peebles Audio Engineering calibration tapes are available here: www.naks.es/
Thanks for this clear demonstration. To save some space you can buy (not expensive) the NAK T-100 audio analyzer software. It has a generator and scope. Works fine for me.
I happened to see this video of yours and found it very entertaining as well as educational… I avoided Nakamaichi’s due to reputation that they are hard to work on and very expensive. Plus I’m a big fan of all things Dolby S TOTL 3 head cassette decks. So in 2012 when I came back to tapes after about 20 years hiatus. Started getting my hands on Aiwa xk-s 7000,9000. Sony tc-ka5es, pioneer ct-93, t1000s, etc etc. When COVID hit, I took a chance got my first Nakamichi, RX-505 and wow I was blown away and could flip that tape all day long 😂. Now in 3 years I have 12 Nakamichi’s the CR7A,CR4A,CR3A. ZX-9, 682ZX, 680,660ZX,BX-300 which is my favorite cause of the bass bump! MR-1B, last acquired items: RX-202 and of course the Dragon… So I became Nak convert but still love all things Dolby S as well… Keep continuing your videos I’ve learn a lot..
Wow that is impressive. Where to buy good used decks? I feel so poor in comparison 😢
Very nice Video, always learning something new. Keep up the good Work!
Interesting tour of the deck. Really like the adjustments. Especially the height. Question - wouldn't adjusting type 1 bias be more consistent at 10khz. Unless its a super ferric there's going to be significant variation at 15k across differing type-1s. Even at -20db. Second question - those two inductions - are they not 19khz MPX traps for the Dolby chip? They could be resonance adjustments, however that's usually done with a ceramic cap across the playback head. Anyway thanks for the tour. Like the deck.
I follow the official Nak procedure which is 15K on all 3 tape types, but some will recommend 10K. I've only ever had problems with cheap shitty Type Is, decent quality ones usually have no problems and are flat through -20db. Fun fact: every single tape is different, so if you REALLY want it dialed in, you have to adjust for every individual tape - not tape model, I mean literally EVERY tape. You'd be surprised how much variation you'll encounter. As with everything we adjust for a compromise to cover the best range. If you are at that level of nerdery, you need a ZX7/9, CR7 or Dragon so you can calibrate every tape you record.
The MPX trap inductors are down near the front panel.
I checked the layout, the HF peaking adjustment is the pair of pots at the back, the inductors you see are for the bias trap. Some Naks have inductors for HF peaking so I assumed this one was the same, oops.
That's another feature I didn't mention - Nak gives you an adjustment (or a series of solder bridges) to adjust the HF peaking to compensate for head wear.
Incredibly useful, thorough and informative! Thank you!!! 👍👍👍
very nice job and super easy with this unit.I ve got 2 JVC DD-5,the common is could be seperate the bias calibrate to every cassette,the high frequency could be adjusted,as playbach frequecy at minus 20 db with 10 khz 1khz must be calibrated the same issue. but missi 4 trimmer pots ,i ve got only 2 nor 6 for record level.So far i m a poor man without scope,i ve got 20 deck every could be callibrated as well,the problem is when changin cassette from one to other must soun as same,not always,THE tape deks like turtables pickup .the sendust heads sounded more fine bass than amophous etc.WITH CALLIBRATION I VE GOT ONLY 1 PROBLEM WHEN CALIBRATE THE TDW-541 SOUNDS GREAT,WITH ANOTHER DEVICE -3 DB UNDER THE LEVEL.
Some small notes to add:
Adjusting bias is not a "more is better/higher level" thing. Bias results in a bell curve of the high frequency response. You'll notice quite quickly that there is a peak and on either side of the peak (lower or higher bias) the 15Khz tone will rapidly drop in amplitude. So don't be tempted to just keep adding bias to increase high frequency level, the opposite will happen.
Classic transport 3 head Naks to watch for:
LX-5, ZX-7, ZX-9, 670, 680, Dragon, 700 Mark II, 1000 Mark II, RX-505
3 head Naks to AVOID (no tape monitoring):
660, 581, 582 has tape monitoring but feels like a Fisher Price toy.
There's a long standing myth perpetrated by Nak haters that Nakamichi uses a non-standard equalization. This is false, and it's been around so long that Nakamichi published an official rebuttal with tech data in the 1970s. The myth originated from their competitors slagging them off and trying to convince people that the reason Nak decks sounded better was because they were somehow cheating.
Realy therre were different standards for equalzation in USA and Europe - no any cheating. Just check other my comment. By my personal imprssion I prefer even that which is not matching normal tapes I only can't say which is which. I think in 70 ties Japan production was targeting Americans
Hello, nice detailed video. In my opinion on the left side it is just the erase head, Both record and playback heads are in the same "boxy" sandwitch. Correct me if i am wrong. Merry Christmass!
Merry Christmas! The erase head with the white plastic is to the left yes, the record head is the smaller head right next to the playback head. However the point is they are mounted separately with individual adjustments, on other brands they just have the record and playback combined into a single monolithic head with no way to adjust the positions independently (so it has 2 heads, but in a single body).
Are you still around fixing the Nakamichi Tape Deck? My old Nakamichi ZX-9 that I purchased new in the 1980s is not working anymore for more than 10 years now. It still power on but not playing or rewinding or fast forward no more. I was thinking maybe it's the belt. Maybe you can give me some ideas on where to look or how to fix it myself. I really missed that deck now and I do not want to sell it but I have no money to get it fix. I am a senior now and my hobby is listening to music since I was a kid. How much do you charge to fix and how do I send it to you?
Can you do a video on how to connect the scope and signal generator for using test tapes?
Nothing exotic going on. I use RCA to BNC adapters and connect with normal RCA cables to the inputs/outpus. You don't need to use compensated probes at audio frequencies.
doesn't a cassette deck have a playback frequency resp adjustment with test tones? That is a big part of reel to reel calibration.
Excellent, thanks!
A knack-a-mee-chey?
Never had any nakaas. Wayy happy with highend AiwA. Many tapeheads loves the rec guality. As good ,or little better. No joke. And the pricetag, nakaas are hilarious highend prizes,thoug. U happy wit nakaas? Good for u,but hey,their not the best.Of the best. If u rich,then go naka,go!! Happy Taping!!
Tandberg cassette decks are known to be better. I once played with a Nakamichi dragon and no matter how I adjusted it I couldn't make it sound the same as the source. I could with the CR-7A. Compare to a Tandberg TCD-3014 and you will se (hear) that the Tandberg is better.
As far as I get noiseless recording sounding not different then original from source which I get confirmed by ears with absolutely Hi FI system I do not make own measurements and calibrations I put 95% effort to system sounding because it is hughly absorbing. If system is not precision then non perfection of reproduction may even be a gain
Example I have two almost identical Telefunken decks only one has added NR system High Com, other not. . And while I play original tapes in Dolby system the second of them reproduces in both channels identicaly stronger sub-low frequency. and first just normal. Without using Dolby it like only half. I suspect may be producer changed the correction to different standard used for different market. So I am happpy with first one which sounds unusual due to very deep bass . If I wolud make corrections I could loose it and miss it.
15:41 - not true... I did the same adjustments on several other decks as well (Pioneer CT-F1250 for instance...)
There are plenty of other 3 head decks with discrete heads. Nakamichi isn’t the only one.
Nakamichi's sound great but I hate their plastic components in the transport mechanism section and of the course the bad orange capacitors. I owned a few but will never buy one again because of their bad quality. There are much better decks out there.
Big Ass Capacitors
Nac is not the best......it just the legend for cosmic prices....
It's a strange hill to die on considering that there are still millions of other cheaper cassette decks out there that beat the CR-3A in terms of overall flatness of frequency response, signal-to-noise ratio and wow and flutter.
Nakamichi are not the best, studer and jvc are
Lol... no.. I have the JVC V1010, the best deck they ever made, why it built quality is great, in terms of sound it is nowhere near a mid-range Nak. I never had a Revox (Studer) but man, that deck designed by a bunch of Engineers that seems like they never seen any other deck in their life before... so many bad mechanical designs and unusual circuitry...
@@maxfactor4209 Studer/Revox is very nicely constructed and have rugged transport mechanisms... but otherwise are pretty average decks. I can see the argument if you just went by build quality alone. They do make some nice reel to reels this side of a Nagra.
My workflow is, replace all elco's specially in pre Amp and Power Supply (voltage check). New belts, new pinchroller, cleaning Full Erase Head and R/W Head. Check grooves in R/W Head. Using original reference tape from device brands (Sony for instance). Normaly not available for end consumers. I don't use 3rd party reference tapes. Using non metal screwdrivers for electronic adjustment. Oscilloscope: probe 1:10. Setup (Azimuth) put on X/Y for LJ display. Lock the adjustment screws when finnished. I prefer copper chassis made devices. Because today there are many HF devices (smartphones) around I build a fully copper shield inside metal or wooden case. Demagnetisation R/W Head is an option to consider.
@ My workflow is, leave it alone if it works