Measurements of Nakamichi Dragon Cassette Deck

[Werner]

Check out the distortion rating of 0.8%. What did I measure?
0.8% at low frequencies!
So folks who were complaining the deck was not in shape, etc. are clearly wrong.

No need to focus on that 0.8%. Distortion of analogue magnetic tape is mainly a function of the tape and of the recordere. Barely any distortion is introduced by playback. Since you used prerecorded tapes, you were not really testing the Dragon at all.
Take a look at this page, where the same deck, in a record-replay cycle, produces THD at Dolby level between 0.34% and 0.90%, only dependent on the tape used. And yes, the deck was each time aligned to each tape.

https://audiochrome.blogspot.com/2019/04/cassette-tape-comparative-measurements.html

Also, your measurements did not nothing to confirm the deck's shape. Head wear and transport wear are a given,
after a service life of 40 years. The former can be investigated with a replay frequency response test (with a
calibration tape), and then a record frequency response test. For a Nak the results must be very wide bandwidth,
and barely inter-channel difference. The transport is to be assessed with a wow&flutter test and a speed
drift test over a full tape. In the particular case of the Dragon the correct working of NAAC has to be verified.

But you prefer to trash a legendary piece of engineering, without first assessing its state of fitness, and using
measurement results for which the deck itself is not even responsible.

I have a word for that ...

 

[anmpr1]

A 1983 Stereo Review test found that with premium tape, the deck to exhibit FR of + or - 1dB from 20-20K at -20dB recording level. At 0dB (loud passages) FR was down 6dB @13kHz with ferric tape, but only down 2dB with metal tape, at 18kHz. With metal tape 3% harmonic distortion was reached at +8dB VU. S/N was between 68 to 77 dB, depending on NR type (B or C). Wow and flutter were measurable, but judged to be not audible. These are excellent results in the context of cassettes, and maybe even pretty good, sonically, in today's context. If pretty good is good enough, and if money is not much of an object, then a refurbished Dragon may be the ticket. All this is predicated on the use of metal tapes. And good heads. Are heads still available? Are metal tapes made, anymore? Using something like off the shelf Maxell UR, it's probably goodbye Charlie.

 

[LuckyLuke575]

It's a tape deck at the end of the day; not surprising to see numbers like these. I listened to tapes back in the day, but when CD's and later Mp3s came out, it was a different universe of audio.

 

[JJB70]

For all I adored my CR7 and lusted after a Dragon, and think that we are unlikely to see the quality of engineering that Nakamichi (the real Nakamichi company, not the companies that have licensed the name) delivered I also think it has to be admitted that the cassette tape (transformational technology and much under rated technology that it was) had its day many years ago and technology moved on. That isn't to lessen the achievements of Nakamichi or the impact made by the cassette tape (immense) but the sort of accessibility, user friendliness and quality of audio we take for granted today and which doesn't even need audio devices anymore would have seemed like science fiction when the Dragon was designed.

 

[JazzGene]

I have a Dragon overhauled by ESL and your tests seem off. The NAAC doesn't seem to be working correctly. The test tapes seem dubious to me as well. The Dragon when working at spec is an amazing sounding machine. You would have to go to a high quality reel to reel to get better playback on analog magnetic tape.

 

[amirm]

I have a Dragon overhauled by ESL and your tests seem off.

"Seem?" Do you have measurements of your own you can post?

 

[amirm]

Barely any distortion is introduced by playback.

Do you measurements of this you can post?

 

[gvl]

The 315Hz THD seems to be in line with the original spec of 0.8%.

 

[JazzGene]

"Seem?" Do you have measurements of your own you can post?

I suppose if I am feeling great and motivated, I can drag my Dragon to my studio and do the tests. But I am in NY and under lockdown as well. In tests prior, the NAAC when working properly will correct the phase to a pretty amazing degree. The THD of 0.8 is as spec.

 

[anmpr1]

I have a Dragon overhauled by ESL and your tests seem off. The NAAC doesn't seem to be working correctly. The test tapes seem dubious to me as well. The Dragon when working at spec is an amazing sounding machine. You would have to go to a high quality reel to reel to get better playback on analog magnetic tape.

I wish it were true, but tape at 1/7 ips has too many limitations compared to even average consumer open reel. Metal tape and the few Dolby S decks were close to mid level open reel. I admit that. At least as far as I've heard with metal tape (I never heard a Dolby S deck, but read a few reviews of them--but by the time it came to market, cassettes had pretty much worn out their welcome).

I give Nakamichi engineers a lot of credit for doing as good a job as they did. But for low noise, dynamics, recording headroom and freedom from distortion artifacts at 0 dB recording levels and higher, a mid-range quarter track at 7 ips will be subjectively better than any cassette deck. When you get into half track on more sophisticated consumer machines such as the Revox, Tandberg, a few of the high end Teacs etc., its goodbye Charlie for cassette. At least that was my experience FWIW.

I admit I never heard every high end cassette deck and all brands of tape formulations, but I've listened to the Nakamichis and Tandbergs, and owned a handful of pretty good open reel decks, including the B77, Teac X10 and X1000. Cassette was always first and foremost something to use in your car. Not your living room for hi-fi. Again, that was my experience and remains my opinion.

Of course all of this is pretty moot since no one is making cassette machines nor open reel decks anymore. No one is making consumer tape (or if they are, they are hiding that fact). It's just something for nostalgia.

PS: the funny thing about cassette was that it was mostly used to make dubs of one's record albums. Party and car mixes. So it wasn't like the medium had to have a lot of potential from the get-go. However, to test you could take one of the high dynamic range direct to disk recordings, or half speed master records on high-end JVC vinyl and then compare source versus copy. I recall doing that at a high end store with a top of the line Nakamichi. The Nakamichi sounded OK, but it was clear the original record had it beat. I wish we could have compared it with a Revox or other high end open reel. But that wasn't in the cards that day. The fact that no one used cassettes for serious live music recordings tells you all you need to know about the medium's limitations.

 

[gvl]

I think there could have better decks past the Dragon at least for making recordings, the head azimuth auto-correction is impressive, but the Dragon didn't have the HX-Pro system which was probably the last technological advancement in the cassette player technology.

 

[Dimitri]

The fact that no one used cassettes for serious live music recordings tells you all you need to know about the medium's limitations.

Now we have "available" super low distortion, greater dynamic range, all the frequency response one's ears can handle , almost non existent noise...and we are straddled with overprocessed re-releasex re-mixes ...(but that's a subject on another thread Progress!

 

[anmpr1]

Now we have "available" super low distortion, greater dynamic range, all the frequency response one's ears can handle , almost non existent noise...and we are straddled with overprocessed re-releasex re-mixes ...(but that's a subject on another thread Progress!

Actually, a couple of outfits made semi-pro and pro portable cassette decks for location recording. My impression was that they were mostly used for news outfits--voice recordings and such. There were mini Nagra and Stellavox open reel stuff for on site production work. The current small hand held digital recorders are really amazing considering what people used to have to use for remote work.

 

[anmpr1]

I think there could have better decks past the Dragon at least for making recordings, the head azimuth auto-correction is impressive, but the Dragon didn't have the HX-Pro system which was probably the last technological advancement in the cassette player technology.

In 1991 Audio Critic David Rich tested one of the last of the high-end cassette decks, with Dolby S. The Pioneer CT-93 had an auto-bias/EQ feature (400Hz, 3KHz, 15KHz) worked by a motorized potentiometer. In his judgement the Pioneer was sonically comparable to his X-2000R Teac. If anyone else had made that claim I'd look away, but I trust his opinion. Comparing CD dubs the Pioneer showed sonic degradation, but not by much. He said it was the best cassette deck he'd ever used. I don't know how many he'd used, but nevertheless. Amazingly his tests were done with XLII-S, a non-metal high bias formulation. In my experience metal tape was sonically superior, so one presumes it would have sounded even better using that.

 

[mhardy6647]

The (heh-heh-heh) deck is so stacked against cassettes, it really is a wonder that the industry was able to wring as much out of the format as it did.
Tape width, track width (four tracks on that itty-bitty tape) and linear tape speed (1-7/8 ips = 4.75 cm/s) are all working against anything like hifi performance. Couple that to Philips' insistence of compatibility* with the lowest common denominator 'dictating machine' uses of the CompactCassette, and it really is amazing that the lowly little cassette outstripped all other tape formats in terms of home audio applications -- at least for a while.

casettebirthday_v2-lrg by Mark Hardy, on Flickr

Dolby C and HX pro frequency response by Mark Hardy, on Flickr
_________________
* Which was thwarted over and over again by manufacturers using things like Dolby NR, higher-bias tape formulations, and even multi-speed decks!

pencil stat by Mark Hardy, on Flickr

 

[JazzGene]

Nakamichi released a series of reference tapes with varying music repertoire. These sound better to me than CD albums. Of course, tapes will never output the same numbers compared to digtial under tests using test tones. Perhaps, my ears prefer the analog sounds and that is just as well.

 

[Wes]

as close to a silk purse as could be made from the sow's ear cassette format...

Advent started it off with the Model 200 (claimed to be a Nakamichi made machine, but they would never confirm it to me), then the Model 201 (Wollensack drive).

I had both and then a succession of Nakamichi decks; forget some but had the 580(??), the 550 portable - and still have the 680zx but it's busted, or I'd copy some recordings I made on it to digital...

 

[mhardy6647]

My "issue" with the better Nakamichi decks (FWIW, which, admittedly, ain't much) is that they were finicky. They needed a fair amount of attention, fiddlin' and twiddlin' to keep making and playing back tapes with high quality. I guess that's not outrageous, but it does (did) kind of work against the convenience motif of even hifi stereo cassette decks (to my way of thinking).

The Pioneer CT-F1000 was pretty nice, and not particularly fiddly -- although both of the ones here have some issues at this late date.

CTF1000 by Mark Hardy, on Flickr

Somewhat less elegant inside, but still chockablock with stuff...

 

[tamagaba]

It is really bad to see these measurement results in today’s digital world
But one is measurement and the other is hearing
All similar devices need complete refurbish after 30-40 years (it doesn't matter who does it)
Now I am listening to my refurbished 7000 Teac and some of their cassettes sound surprisingly good
How can I measuring head-azimuth state with a laptop and for example REW (the newest version has Scope feature) ?
Cheers

 

[bt3]

Owned the Nakamichi 600 in 70's. The "modest" priced Nakamichi deck. Mostly liked it because of its style/shape. Around the same time owned the Harmon Kardon Citation 16 and a DBX 3BX. IMO it was all those colorful lights that attracted audio shoppers. Back then I preferred listening to records on my Duel CS721 or to reel-to-reel tapes than to cassettes. A reel-to-reel with those big reels turning, just looked awesome. The Citation 16 with all those lights just looked awesome. In a darkened room with beer and schnaps in hand. Think much of audio choice appeal comes down to marketing and appearance. Has much really changed in forty years in what attracts most audio consumers?