Favourite components, classics and legends in their own lounge rooms

[Briz vegas]

Ok posters, what is the component in your system that seems like it won't be going anywhere soon - or maybe its your whole system? Maybe its a turntable that you are never likely to replace, or a much loved reel to reel player. In these days of upgraditus what has gone the distance?

Below is my Nakamichi 620 power amp circa '77. Its 100watts rms were a freebie from someone who did not realise its worth and it started me down the path of upgrades and a new appreciation of the 2 channel sound done well. In my current system the Nak was, until very recently, sitting between a new Conrad Johnson pre-amp and 804s speakers.

Currently the brave little Nak is fighting for survival in the amp hospital with suspected output section failure. Only time will tell if the little guy will pull through. The 804s are not happy that they are being fed by a receiver and the CJ pre is feeling quite redundant. You can post your best wishes here, or better still you can tell everyone about the component in your system that never seems to get replaced through luck, good performance or maybe just bad management

:W ops:

[bigburner]

My Sansui SR-525 turntable which was purchased in London in 1976. Paired with the phono stage in my modest Rotel RC-1070 preamp I get a lovely creamy sound that I could listen to all night.

[Karma]

HI All,
My mint Nakamichi Dragon cassette deck. Not only does it sound good (I prefer it to CD's) and handles tape like a pro, I like its cosmetics better than any audio component I have ever seen.

It is one of the few cassette decks that can take full advantage of Dolby C because of its extremely flat high frequency response. With metal tape and Dolby C it has a dynamic range of over 75 dB. That's excellent in case you don't know. While the CD dynamic range spec exceeds the Nak, most CD's are produced with restricted dynamic range for a number of reasons. The 75 dB range of the Dragon is usually sufficient to properly capture even good CD's. Even when it's not, tape saturation is gradual and tends to hide the rare peaks where the range of the machine is exceeded.

Nakamichi held out on auto reverse because they maintained they could not maintain high sound quality in both directions due to azimuth variations caused by the plastic cassette case. The Dragon was the first Nak with auto reverse. Later Nak models also had auto reverse by physically flipping the tape over. The Dragon, however, better accomplishes the direction switch with the tape in place. How they did this is more than I can go into here.

But I can't resist giving a little insight into the uniqueness of the machine. Conceptually, the machine monitors the phase of the recorded audio on one channel which uses a split playback head pole piece to detect the azimuth of the original record head by comparing the audio phase comming off the split pole. A servo circuit is used to adjust the azimuth of the playback head until the detected phase difference is zero. Thus, the azimuth differences in tape direction (or any other reason) are corrected in real time. This also means that the performance of prerecorded tapes and tapes made on other machines is optimized. The scheme is very clever, very expensive, very complicated, and works like a charm. This level of engineering is evident throughout the machine.

I have run the following test a number of times. I coral one of my tape naysayer friends. I put on a good CD for playback and record it simultaneously on the Dragon. Then I switch (unseen) between the original and the recording in real time and ask if my friend if they can tell which is the CD and which is the tape. This real time comparison is possible because the Dragon has three heads. Most of the time they select the Dragon recording as the CD. Actually, I would choose the Dragon because I know it sounds better. But the naysayer assumes the CD would sound better. Then I give them contol of the Dragon's monitor switch so they can hear for themselves. Without exception they are amazed by the recording quality.

I just love the way it looks and sounds. I bought it for $650 about 4 years ago after having drooled over Dragon's for years. The $2500 new price tag (in the early 1990's when it was still in production) was steeper than I could afford.

Sparky

[Blindamood]

That would be my Carver DTL-200 CD player. I purchased it while I was still in college ('87?), and it was a huge splurge at the time, considering it cost me almost $600 of my hard-earned summer landscaping wages. I used this my last couple years of college and into my early 'adult' life until I finally moved to a universal DVD player and could not spare the extra space in my rack.

I still have this baby, but it now resides (for the moment) in my basement. I must admit that I tried to sell it once, but had no luck. Can't seem to just get rid of it, though. Gotta admit, I still love the unique style (with the handles) and the unique Bob Carver technologies, such as the 'Digital Time Lens' (DTL).

[David Meek]

Sparky, you've got a Dragon???? What a GREAT deck! ;x(

[Briz vegas]

Yeah, nice Dragon Sparky. My 600 series system is a little more "pre loved". The pre amp/radio with the monster sized tuning dial that looks like it is out of some early sci fi film or a from a submarine works fine, but some of the lights have died and the fm signal leaks through when the selector is set to aux. The tape deck was DOA but that could be something simple to fix. Bowers & Wilkins provide service support for Dragon decks but do not support the 600 series components. Right now I am mainly concerned about the amp as it is the only Nak component in my current system.

Oh, and my first amp was a sansui integrated. Whatever happened to them I wonder?

Blindamood, how does your early CD player sound compared to a modern universal. I had a Sony CD101 which I also purchased in '87. Much is made of how much better CD players sound compared to these relatively early players. Have you done an AB? I like the handles. Hifi with a bit of character always appeals to me, like the current Droplet and Forbidden City players, and not to forget the Shanling 100 also.

[NonSense]

Sparky

HI All,
Most of the time they select the Dragon recording as the CD. Actually, I would choose the Dragon because I know it sounds better. But the naysayer assumes the CD would sound better. Then I give them contol of the Dragon's monitor switch so they can hear for themselves. Without exception they are amazed by the recording quality.

I was just wondering, is the recording actually an improvement or is it just equal? The improvement realized by the fact that the playback through the preamp via the tape loop is cleaner since it bypasses the source switching electonics. Many high end pre-amps spec their performance using the tape loop as it is the cleanest path through the pre-amp.

I have had similar results with a deck I used to use (and still have, but now in a box). My unit had the dbx encoding/decoding feature which did a great job reducing the background noise. Playback was virtually identical. I'm not sure the recording was ever better, but the advantage of the tape loop might tip the scales. (but my unit wasn't a DRAGON)

Interesting

[Karma]

HI Bruce,
Great question. There is no doubt in my mind that the Dragon's recording must degrade the sound somewhat. So why does the recording seem to sound better? I have some ideas but no firm conclusions.

First, the tape loop did not change. I was using the tape monitor switch on the deck, not on the preamp. While this does reroute the signal inside the deck, the changes are minor. I don't think that is the cause.

Maybe closer to the truth is the "improvements" are a result of analog tape artifacts. My experience with CD sound is the extreme high frequencies are a little harsh and ragged. This is most noticable on violins. The Nak seems to smooth these sounds out. This is probably due to high frequency response limitations above 22kHz, the 3dB limit on the machine.

Also, the recording is subject to Dolby C processing which is rather radical. Any nonlinearity in the machines high frequency response is exagerated by the processing. This is the reason that Dolby C was not favored by most cassette users. It made their 2 head (generally) machines sound soft. The Dragon, or for that matter any of the Nakamichi 3 head machines, has great high frequency response but it's not perfect. This could cause a further smoothing of CD's ragged edges.

The most confusing part to me is the Dragon seems to have a better sound stage exhibiting more depth and even adding to the depth from the CD. The only thing I can figure is the change (slight and not really noticible) in the high frequencies are changing the overall tonal balance that shows up in the midrange.

These are guesses. I'd like to hear your thoughts on the issue.

BTW, the Dragon's bass is every bit as good as most CD's. Not bad for a cassete tape machine.

Sparky

[Alaric]

Karma , I had a Nak ZX9 about a bazillion years ago . Using metal tape it was a serious performer with the Tandberg amp and pre.

[alebonau]

I had a nakamichi cr-2 tape deck myself. I tell you when I finally sold it. For the prospective buyer I did a recordign off CD and played it back doing an AB comparison with the original CD and boy there was literally nothing in it. Thats how good those Naka's were back then. Really only sold it as had nothing left in the house or in the car using tapes anymore. But a beautifull machine, such a joy to use it was.