Help! My Nakamichi LX-5 won’t play, rewind, ff, or record.

atmasphere 

you are right. When I put in a cassette, every time I'd preso play, It would pull maybe 2 inches of tape out

i replaced the tape detector light, which I thought was the problem, but it did nothing.

I've probably repaired thousands of cassette machines over the years- I started in 1974. Nakamichis are a bit trickier to source parts but not impossible. If you plan to do this yourself be warned that you have to be careful!! I would take it to a qualified technician and expect to spend $200-$300 getting everything sorted- it likely needs new filter capacitors in the power supplies as well.

atmasphere Yes, I think i'll take it to a cassette deck tech. I opened it up once, and it was very cluttered and I didn't touch anything, because I was afraid I would mess it up more.

For Nakamichi cassette deck repair, I've seen nothing but excellent reviews for Willy Herman.

https://www.willyhermannservices.com/

tls49

thanks, I’ll check that out.