Just got my Nak Dragon - Wow

Yes, some folks don’t believe how good a well-recorded cassette can sound on a great Nak deck. You have a collector’s item there, enjoy it and keep it well maintained.

Regards,

I still have a functional Nakamichi ZX-7 with the belt drives and it indeed is an analog treat. For pure musical pleasure I would put it up against many of the CDP's of the day and I can record, obviously! Topoxforddoc it's cool to hear there is still someone out there hearing the Nak quality. Enjoy!

Sorry, but how does it sound so good if you are recording CDs?

Or do you have secret master tapes on cassette?

Dear CwLondon,

I don't have any secret master tapes; in fact I haven't even got round to doing any recording yet. (I will however be recording some old reel to reel tapes on my Revox G36 later when I have time). I've just started relistening to our old back catalogue of pre-recorded cassettes that we bought all those years ago. I have just been stunned just how good the deck is. It costs but a fraction (less than 10%) of my vinyl front end.

Listening to the Dragon through the rest of my kit (Tron Meteor tube preamp, Quad IIs and Avantgarde Duos) has been a humbling experience. I never thought cassette could be this good - reel to reel yes, but cassette - surely not! We have all known how good a top vinyl front end can be, but how many of us truly believed in the old compact cassette?

With manual azimuth alignment on the recording head it gets even better when you play back a cassette that you recorded say, off an Lp on this deck as with my ZX-7, pretty impressive. The dragon as I recall may have auto azimuth on the play head. Do you know? Anyway back in the day (1985?) when I bought it a record Lp recorded on a blank cassette would smoke, hands down, the first CDs that started showing up. It took years for the music industry to sort that mess out. Some CDs sound really good these days. It’s about time as they move some of us to new formats yet again. Enjoy!