I got my Nakamichi cassette deck from the Salvation Army.

Posted by Teresa on September 16, 2006 at 17:50:07

In Reply to: To be totally honest posted by bjh on September 16, 2006 at 08:37:02:

I nearly had a heart attack when I spotted it setting on a row of complete dreck cassette decks. I grabbed tested it and took it home. I got the service manual on eBay as the azimuth was off, found the adjustment screw and adjusted it by ear. When means it's not perfect but close but nowadays to get any piece of equipment worked on you have to drop at least a $100 bill. For a $39.50 purchase I wasn't willing to do it yet. I'm not using it for recording just playback. I use my Reel to Reel for recording, which is in perfect adjustment.

While I only had Cassette for the car I picked up a lot of normal commercial cassettes which were fine for the car environment. But to my surprise most of these sound excellent on the Nakamichi at home. Sometimes near equal to the LP in sound but with lower noise. The Nakamichi even with only Dolby B has very little tape hiss and some of the best bass I've heard in any format, plenty of impact and energy. And audiophile cassettes sound almost as good as audiophile LPs.

I compared "The Missing Linc" which I have on Sheffield Lab Direct to Disc LP and Nakamichi Reference Cassette real time transfer from the Sheffield Lab Analog Master to TDK Metal tape. Remember this is a comparison of the Direct to Disc versus the tape copy of the back-up master tape. Here is what I heard:
1. The LP had the most extended high frequencies
2. The tape had the best bass with the most impact
3. The LP had some surface noise.
4. The tape had zero tape hiss and no noise except for the performers.

All told I like the cassette the best if it is not played right after the LP as the high frequencies of this Direct Disc LP are among the best in my collection. I have many LPs that do not have as much high frequency energy as the cassette.

I had to keep both as they both offer me different things from the same recording.

Cassettes of this caliber are very rare. But Cassettes can be carried around with you and played in a Walkman and can be played in your car as well.

I continue to be amazed how good cassettes, at a slow speed of 1 7/8 IPS can sound so good. Cassette errors are sins of omission not sins of addition. If you find a Nakamichi at a good price grab it.

"Analog is Music, Digital is mathematics"
Happy listening,
Teresa

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Follow Ups Full Thread

Topic - Let's play ... Identity the LP fan - bjh 10:01:10 09/15/06 (18)

me.. except for the DVD-A collection.. I bought the player, but no DVD-A's... - Elizabeth 08:10:11 09/16/06 (0)

You are very close but a few corrections: - Teresa 21:31:01 09/15/06 (5)

Well I'll admit that - bjh 23:14:00 09/15/06 (4)

Not so much a devotion to Vinyl as a devotion to Analog - Teresa 01:13:06 09/16/06 (2)

To be totally honest - bjh 08:37:02 09/16/06 (1)

I got my Nakamichi cassette deck from the Salvation Army. - Teresa 17:50:07 09/16/06 (0)

Sound advice, but... - powermatic 23:29:16 09/15/06 (0)

Obviously... it is... - rich121 16:05:36 09/15/06 (0)

Michael Fremer??? nt - Scab 12:12:27 09/15/06 (1)

Are you sure you didn't miss the buying and selling of two SACD collections? /nt/ - powermatic 11:53:48 09/15/06 (1)

Please! ... - bjh 12:31:41 09/15/06 (0)

Not me though I do own 1 DVD-A which IMO is much better than CD. . . - risabet 11:42:48 09/15/06 (0)

Can't be me; I don't own any DVD-As. )MT( - J. S. Bach 11:13:44 09/15/06 (0)

Re: Let's play ... Identity the LP fan: could it be... - teenage diplomat 10:45:56 09/15/06 (0)

I'm a LP fan. The reason is that they consistantly outperform ther ceedee counterpart - artemus 10:32:57 09/15/06 (0)

Me??? - anumber1 10:16:11 09/15/06 (0)

Uh, Fred J??? /nt\ - HenryH 10:04:02 09/15/06 (0)

Follow Ups

I got my Nakamichi cassette deck from the Salvation Army. - Teresa 17:50:07 09/16/06 (0)

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