Nakamichi 505 or the Dragon ?

Basement,

Can the Dragon, or RX-505's heads be aligned, & kept true with the aid of a MFSL Geo Tape?

Hi Dave,

Basement gave you a lot of very useful information. I am not an "expert" as some are, but I have owned numerous very nice Nak decks (680, ZX-7, ZX-9 and CR-7A) and I used to be assigned to a Nak e-mailing forum for a few years where there was a lot of information shared, I don't know if it is still up and going.

As for TWL's experience with the Tandberg, I will be clear in that I have never owned one, but followed discussions in like manner before, from those that owned both Tandberg and Nak and those that serviced both. The Tandberg (3014) is a very good deck, BUT it will not "easily outperform any Nakamichi, including the Dragon" as TWL says. Basement already did a great job at covering why one "may" think that if all isn't right.

I would like to further add that Nak decks have a far greater following and as the use of cassette decks dwindle, IMO it will be easier to get the Nak serviced than the Tandberg. I will mention www.eslabs.com as "probably" the most qualified to work on Nak decks. You don't find any 3014's for sale as they are rare.

The nice thing about the two decks you mention is that they have auto-reverse, which can be quite nice; if this is very important to you, don't give it up. I agree that there are better Naks than the 505 for performance, though when tuned up you may be splitting hairs; as for the Dragon I have read that it can be tempormental, but when working great it is a great playback deck.

You mention that you do not want to bother with calibrating the deck when you record, a deck like the CR-7A will do it for you at a touch of a button, but no auto-reverse.

Vvrinc, you are correct, Nakamichi used ZX-9's in their recording studio.

As Basement alluded, all decks need to be properly aligned. I don't care what deck you record a tape on, if you play the tape on a deck that isn't properly aligned, the tape will not sounds its best, no matter how good the deck is. On the same token, if a deck out of alignment records a tape, though it may sound fine being played back on the recording deck, it may not on others.

Most of the information is dead on. I've owned 5 Nak decks and while I've not owned the Dragon, am all too familiar with a less than dependable record. When aligned and tuned to a knat's ass it is incredible. You will not need to fidgit with the 505, ZX-9, 670ZX or many other Naks. Good luck.

Just to add a suggestion for Valleyplastic, but also ask a question of the more knowledgeable Nak buffs: What about the BX-300? (I own one). How does it compare to the other Naks mentioned here, & specifically the 680Z?

If playback is the only (main) concern, and you have a big budget, the dragon would be an excellent choice. Especially if you don't want to fidget. If you are playing cassettes from a variety of sources, it is inevitable the you will get tapes recorded with a variety of azimuth adjustments, and the dragon will automatically align itself to play them back at their best. You will get far better use of a cassette collection this way. If you have a large collection, it makes that collection that much more valuble.
If you are not recording and not primarily using the dragon for that purpose, the other reliability issue and alignment issue actually becomes less. With alignments one thing leads to another and effects another, and the complexity of the dragon along with its self-aligning nature makes it harder to keep these alignments at the critical best, which is why the zx-9 and others are used for the absolute best recordings. As parts age and wear the need for alignment is still there, and the alignment issues will compound and make recording alignment the hardest, and with the dragon, there is MUCH more to align to get this up to spec, but for playback, the self-aligning playback head of the dragon will compensate for this better as other alignments for recording start to fall out of spec. In other words, the complexity of the dragon that makes it harder to maintain for the best recording is an advantage for playback.
While 3-head naks are thought of as great recorders, they are really great players. The playback head of the 3-head naks are really in my opinion the best. A lot of them, including those refered to above, are better than nearly anything (if not all) for playback, and usually by a wider margain than most consider because most people evaluate them for thier recording ability. (I would be interested in what TWL remembers in this regard compared to the tandberg).
To put a finer point on it, while a lot of 3-head naks will still enjoy an advantage for play back because of its narrow head gap and alignable nature, dragon would excell in this regard. The dragon was really made to be the state of the art player, made for customers who are willing to spend the money on extracting the most from cassette playback. While there is more than can and will go wrong with the dragon, for playback it will have an advantage in the alignment/maintenence issue.
It all depends on what you are willing to spend on cassettes. If they are important enough to you for the extra dough of a dragon, you would be a good home for one.