Nakamich RX-505 Cassette Deck

Asit

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Hi cassette lovers,

Last Friday I read in one of the threads Cranky mentioning about seeing a Nakamichi deck in an used shop in Kolkata. I immediately contacted Cranky and got the number of the shop. Later that day Cranky, his friend and I showed up at the shop.

That was a Nakamichi BX-300 model. We auditioned it with an old Luxman amp and some ordinary floorstanding speakers. I carried a few good quality recordings on chrome cassettes (TDK and Maxell). The deck was functioning quite well, although appearance was a bit run down. There was a playing level control on the front face and it had a bit of static kind of noise as one moved it. The shopkeeper said it would work fine once one uses it for a while. Over the phone the guy was asking 7K, but at the store he asked for 8.5K. We had a bit of an argument over that. I must say the sound was sublime, very lively and musical, yet extremely polished and sobre.

Shopkeeper then brought another model, the Nakamichi RX-505. Appearance was huge and quite impressive, weighing 10 kg. Lookwise a lot better.

This as I understand is one of the classic Nakamichi deck (contemporary and sharing some traits with the Dragon) costing USD 1500-1600 USD when new. It has the classic UDAR (Uni Directional Auto Reverse) mechanism by which the cassette actually rotates 180 degrees to play the other side. Needless to say it has 3 discrete heads.

When one sees it in reasonable cosmetic condition, it is almost impossible to resist. And then we heard it playing thru the same amp and speakers. So there was no escape route for me. The same cassettes played significantly better in this deck with much clearer sound.

I could bring the price down from 10.5 K to 9K after some fierce negotiation and brought it home. There is currently a RX-505 in audiogon asking USD 399. The audiogon one has everything, user manual, original box and apparently in top condition.

At home, I moved the Onkyo deck away from my rack and placed the RX-505. It's such a huge one that it just fitted my rack shelf.

Thiis is the sound I was missing. Oh, simply heavenly. I hope I can keep this deck. The first few hours of playing, it had some problems with loading and ejecting. I called the shop and they said the unit was not operated for a long time and one has to use for a while and the problems should disappear. Actually after that the problems have not resurfaced yet.

Anybody having any information on this deck, any real users or anybody happy to know about my new acquisition, please respond.

Regards and wish me good luck with this deck.

Note: There is a typo at the title, it's very obvious and I hate having typo in the title. How to correct it?
 
hi asit,

do post more bout it. am looking out (in some time) for a cassette deck myself to play some rarities i have lying around.

regards
 
Hai Stevieboy,

If you contact Mohanmusic , chennai, you may get a good used one. I have seen Denon and Technics at their place recently.

Thanks,

N.Murali.
 
oh nice, congrats. My wife's cousin is a cassette tape freak and has 3 3-head tape decks including a Bang & Olufsen (one of the Jacob Jensen designed ones), a Tanndberg one and a TEAC one, but I never thought much of cassette tape and never bothered listening to them, now I am thinking I should drop in at his place and maybe listen to them!
 
I have a Nakamichi BX-100 2 head deck.I bought it for Rs.14,000/- 2 years back (2nd hand).I have been using it regularly since i bought it and still works fine.I had taken it to my repair person (I wanted to know whether inner electronic parts are already worked with) before buying.It also had similar problems like what Asitji mentioned.My repair person who have worked with Naks already ,said it is bcoz of Carbon particles accumulated (bcoz of not moving the switches for a while).Once they were cleaned ,everything was fine.

Dont ask me about sound...NAKS are NAKS.

I have a NAK BX-150 and Akai GX-95 Mk2.So I wont mind parting with my BX-100 if I get a decent price.
 
Thiis is the sound I was missing. Oh, simply heavenly.

ASITJI,Congrats.
I think I can guess What you feel when you hear it on a NAK.The sweetness..I have no words...

With regard to your problems,I have shared my experience in the previous post.If you are taking it to a service guy,I may tell you to take to one who has experience with NAKS.Other wise they may do more harm than good.Moreover RX-505 have some unique NAK Mechanism for the autoreverse.Be careful with that.I will suggest you not to use autoreverse function.
Best Wishes
Brejesh
 
congrats Asit! I am also baiting patiently for a deck. I don't know what quality cassette I have, but I definitely want to play those again, the ones I grew up on. I am on a look out for a good TT in decent budget - please let me know if you come across one.

regards
 
Hi Anm,

If you do not have that many cassettes and the quality is not great, perhaps it's not worth it. I have so many, and 50% of them would compare well with or beat even well-recorded CDs, I am enjoying a good deck. You can perhaps borrow a deck from somewhere (even if you have to pay some money for it as rental) for a month or two and put all your cassettes into CDs using a PC. I know many people who have done it.

Regards.
 
don't have that many cassettes and quality also not very high grade. But maybe someone who is looking to get rid of them can pass them on to me.
 
Sorry to OP. Anybody know how good is Naka CR 3E, it's a 3-head mechanism, can i just buy it blindly or for that money i can settle with Onkyo one ?
 
Congrats Asit,

Wish you very well especially that it lasts a loooooooooooooooooong time. Post some pics too.
 
murali and asit,

thanks for the tips. bout 4-5k is my budget. dont want to go tops on a cassette deck. lp playback is paramount for me :) i'll probably pick one up in a while no hurry. there is someone here who can source a deck for me, accumulating funds...

murali, plus am in bangalore so no chance of trying it out before buying. thanks all the same! :)

regards
 
The end of Nakamichi Tape Decks and Stasis Amplifiers is one of the greatest tragedy of our Audio Industry.

:sad:
 
Very Nice! :eek:hyeah: That deck was the stuff of my dreams and the 'Unidirectional Auto-reverse' is a very cool feature. Please post a lot of pics of your catch!
 
oh nice, congrats. My wife's cousin is a cassette tape freak and has 3 3-head tape decks including a Bang & Olufsen (one of the Jacob Jensen designed ones), a Tanndberg one and a TEAC one, but I never thought much of cassette tape and never bothered listening to them, now I am thinking I should drop in at his place and maybe listen to them!

Im rather curious - I have exactly the same combo - a Bang&Olufsen Beocord 9000 (just finished a recording session off Chennailive FM) a Tandberg 440A and a TEAC A800 master cassette deck..Still looking around to get a Nak CR7..
 
Im rather curious - I have exactly the same combo - a Bang&Olufsen Beocord 9000 (just finished a recording session off Chennailive FM) a Tandberg 440A and a TEAC A800 master cassette deck..Still looking around to get a Nak CR7..

I must also add Im still a cassette (deck) freak.. have one of the rarest cassettes (Luxman XM series chrome tape with azimuth alignment on the cassette shell) still works well..has anyone come across a XM 4?
 
Seem a cassette tape revival of sort, led by Nakamichi, is taking place.

I am encouraged to bring back from retirement my faithful Nak 600. Its a great piece of equipment and used to form a component of the legendary System One series of premium Nakamichi audio rack equipment in 70s. Will post a few pics once its taken out of the storage.
 
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