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Nakamichi cassette playback in non-Nak deck?

I've been considering investing in a good used Nak 3-head deck for home recording (DR1 or DR2 or similar) - mainly to make high quality tapes for playback at home and in my Sony walkman and Blaupunkt car deck. Yes, I do own an iPod (1gig shuffle) which I love but cassettes are still cool, too!

Anyway, researching online I came across a bit that stated playback of tapes in a non-Nak deck may be a bit disappointing due to the fact that Nak apparently uses a very narrow gap recording head to magnetize the tape which "ordinary" decks cannot fully playback, leading to a more muddy/muted sound with less soundstage vs. playback in a Nak deck. Anyone have any experience with this?

My walkman is the high-end 10th anniversary edition from 1989 (wmf-701c) with dolby C and laser amorphous head. I believe it is a narrow-gap design with 20-20,000 freq. response with metal tape and S/N better than 70dB with Dolby C. I should say that the FM tuner in the walkman sounds arguably as good or better than MP3's on my iPod at 192kbps! It's a quality deck and I think it would be fun to see how a really well-recorded tape will sound on it. Would a Nak work well in this case or should I find a used Sony ES 3-head deck for best results instead? -jz
john_z
seasoned's avatar
seasoned
181 posts
 
Used to make tapes on a Nak 480 for playback in the car (Concord head unit, ADS speakers) and the sound was outstanding - treble was clear and extended. If there is a problem with tape track-to-head alignment, the first to go will be the high frequencies. Listen for the highs when evaluating...if they are clear and extended, then no worries.
headsnappin's avatar
headsnappin
295 posts
 
Most manufacturers of cassette decks boost treble in the record mode and Nak boosts it in the playback mode as prescribed by philips who invented the cassette. In the days of owning a cassette based car stereo I finally used a nak car deck and got great sound.
nuno_barbosa
32 posts
 
I own a Cassete Deck 2 and yes I still record tapes to listen in my car and the quality is very inferior. In the nak at home is fine but I've tried in other home decks with same poor results. In the car the issue is mainly due to the input/output level. To use in the car I have to record with a higher input to be able to have a decent sound level but some care is needed or you'll get sound distortion.
For great home sound from tapes I would say get a Nak but to use in other equipments maybe you can try some other brand, the Sony you mention might be better for wider use.
kirkus
502 posts
 
The width of the magnetic gap on a record head has NOTHING to do with the performance of a subsequent playback head. The only compatibility concerns are those of track width, which in a cassette will cause severe crosstalk way before it affects performance parameters.

I have heard the "Nakamichi tapes only play back well on Nakamichi decks" thing for years . . . and I think it's an old-husbands' tale. But Nakamichis were more consistently in good mechanical and electrical alignment from the factory compared to most mass market decks. So if you make a recording on a Nak, play it back on the Nak and it sounds great . . . maybe in comparison another deck doesn't sound as good on playback.

Also, if you compare two tapes, one recorded on a perfectly-calibrated machine, and another on one that runs a tad slow and underbiases the tape, and play them both on a third machine . . . to most people the recording that's higher in pitch and sizzlier on the top end (the second one) will sound "better".

If you find a nice Nakamichi, buy it. They're great.
kmulkey
173 posts
 
I've owned a Nak CR-4 and a CR-7a and they both were incredible machines and the tapes sounded OK on other decks.
But, the deck that put all Naks to shame, as far as playback on other decks, was the HK CD-491. Sounded crystal clear, not even a trace of muffling and you could actually use dolby B or C, regardless of whether it was a car deck or another home deck. Great unit.
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