Which Nakamichi to choose?

@jond

My CR-7a with belts is marginally better than my CR-7a with gear train. High frequency was not an issue on Dolby B with either deck when stock. I found Dolby C to sound a little "processed", but not degraded to digital levels.

I suggest that you buy the best deck you can find. My father, a shipyard superintendent, with corresponding hearing damage, compared a high class Denon to a DR-1. His comment, "There’s really no comparison, is there?"

I thought about a ZX-9, but the automatic alignment feature on the CR-7a is really useful.

@tls49 

Thanks for the Nak link. I'd forgotten about that site!


@lowrider57 

Sorry, I mis-attributed the question to jond. See above. Yes, pretty close to studio quality, IMO.

Thanks, @terry9 . I still have my notes on the various Nak models when I was looking to buy.
I worked in studios and am very familiar with how quiet R-R and cassette can be. I'd like to try transferring CD's to a high-end cassette deck; I know analogue tape bestows a nice sonic quality to the recording.

While they certainly SOUNDED wonderful when compared to vinyl back in the day--a "hollow" sound was the most notable difference when compared A-B to vinyl--my personal experience when selling Nakamichi was that 100% of them came back broken within a few weeks.  They were sent off to be fixed and typically were OK after that--the 700 was particularly quirky--but the others were OK.  Dragon (II?), I think, was considered the best one at 3 heads, but the various versions of the 700 and 1000 had 3 heads as well as I remember. (Getting old!)

If you get one, be sure it has been serviced and listen to it A-B with another source--vinyl suggested--and you might be surprised how good it sounds when it works.  Regarding good tapes, I have lost track of that medium, but it is not an inherently bad one. I would guess people here know which ones are considered "best" today. Now DIGITAL...don't get me started on compression algorithms.  UGH!!

I researched cassette decks from ebay 3 years ago and found "best value" deals on Nak CR3, one of which I bought and tested for a friend. It beat out the SQ compared to my refurb Teac V770 (which I also recommend) and to a JVC 3-head deck TD-V621 (which I bought for myself as a backup; not bad but not as good as Teac or Nak). I thought that most of the Nak 3-head decks circa late 80s-early 90s all looked good, but some were going for a premium price. The decks I considered were CR3,CR4,CR5,DR1,DR2,DR10, and Nak "Cassette Deck 1". A full refurb on any of them would be good to consider IMO. PS the CR3 finally broke down after 3 years according to my friend. No repair shop nearby where we live...