[warubozu]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Denim I bet everyone from the album era knows Nakamichi Dragon cassette decks. These were the cream of the crop for cassette decks. Never knew they made a Dragon CD deck.

Ah yes, the Nakamichi Dragon cassette deck brings back some memories. Wish I didn't sell mines years back when I was strapped for cash

. The Dragon cassette desk remains as the best sounding cassette deck I have the opportunity of listening to and owning. In fact most of the other Nak cassette decks available at the time of the Dragon sounded great or at least to my ears better than any other cassette decks that were available at that time. The Nak Dragon is still a highly regarded cassette deck by many today, just may have to look into buying another one. IIRC Nakamichi Music bank CDPs sounded pretty good too when they were available just that they didn't receive the same legendary status as their cassette decks. I remember the Nak Dragon cassette deck and CDP were also available in their car audio line up.

 

[jayB]

Back in the 1980's I DREAMED of having a Nak Dragon Deck...

 

[Bob A (SD)]

I still have and use mine

That vintage Philips CDP is being replaced with an Eastsound CD-E5 which should be in my hands shortly. System description at http://cgi.audioasylum.com/systems/320.html

--Bob

 

[elrod-tom]

The rest of the Nak decks DID sound very good indeed!!

Funny Story: I had a buddy that had a pretty sweet setup back in college - an old Crown power amp coupled with some huge speakers that his old man (an electrical engineer) had made. Well, my buddy was one of these guys who felt like he had to impress folks with his stuff, so he bought what was at the time the entry level Nak cassette deck. Nice deck, and it sounded great...

At any rate, it had this fade in/fade out feature that was a single push button...worked for out as well as record in. The button was called "the master fader", and my buddy just had to show EVERYONE how cool this thing was. It was a real hoot...we referred to him as "the master fader" for years after that (though we didn't have the heart to do it to his face

)

 

[Denim]

Bob A (SD) - What is below your DBX unit? It's looks likes like an old Dolby-A unit that I have. If it is, what do you use it for?

 

[Bob A (SD)]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Denim Bob A (SD) - What is below your DBX unit? It's looks likes like an old Dolby-A unit that I have. If it is, what do you use it for?

Yup, you're got good eyes. It's a ~1973 outboard Concord Dolby encoder/decoder. Many of my older 7" reels are dolby encoded so it's used for playing them back on the Tandberg TD-20A. I have a lab calibration tape to dial things in properly.

 

[Denim]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bob A (SD) Yup, you're got good eyes. It's a ~1973 outboard Concord Dolby encoder/decoder. Many of my older 7" reels are dolby encoded so it's used for playing them back on the Tandberg TD-20A. I have a lab calibration tape to dial things in properly.

Mine is identical! Been watching ebay from time to time to see what I can get for mine. Yours the the only other Concord that I've ever seen.

(Sorry about getting away from the original Dragon topic

)

 

[warubozu]

Just ran across a Nakamichi Dragon cd player, power supply, and dac on Ebay:

http://cgi.ebay.com/NAKAMICHI-DRAGON...Power-supply_W
0QQitemZ280133141786QQihZ018QQcategoryZ3272QQrdZ1Q QcmdZViewItem

IIRC the Dragon cd system when it was still in production back in 1994, it had a retail price of about $12K for the complete system. It was touted as a limited edition system with only 200 built.

 

[CMasten]

To my knowledge Nak never made a Dragon anything outside of its NAACS cassette deck.

They did make CD players but they were expensive and didnt have near the reputation that the Dragon (or any of their quality cassette decks) do still today

No idea where this one came from, interesting to know the history of it.

 

[Bob A (SD)]

CMasten,

Sorry to disagree but Nakamichi reserved its "Dragon" appellation for its ne plus ultra top of the line products. Yes the cassette deck is the most well known (I own one) but they also made the CD/DAC unit referenced above as well as Dragon turntables. The CD and turntable units are very rare and expensive. Do a search of the web and you'll find data including pictures.

 

[CMasten]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bob A (SD) /img/forum/go_quote.gif CMasten, Sorry to disagree but Nakamichi reserved its "Dragon" appellation for its ne plus ultra top of the line products. Yes the cassette deck is the most well known (I own one) but they also made the CD/DAC unit referenced above as well as Dragon turntables. The CD and turntable units are very rare and expensive. Do a search of the web and you'll find data including pictures.

Thanks for the correction Bob A, I actualy owned a Dragon Deck also and was unaware that Nak even had a line of "Dragon" products... Ill have to do more homework.

 

[radz]

Didn't Nakamichi shut shop and restructure the company in the mid 90s?

After this time they dropped their high end component goal and started making more affordable and lifestyle systems.

Today I think the nakamichi name remains but thats all thats left. The company has been completely restuctured, key staff have left and they aren't the high quality company they were in the 80s.

So I don't know what the quality of a 95 dragon would be like, but going by Bobs comments it might be the last of their good stuff which would make them very collectible.

That being said though, I still have a nakamichi MB2 they I got in the 90s that has served me very well and I have loved.

 

[Hermitt]

I heard the same thing about them dropping quality to focus on mass marketing around that time. I still own my Nak TA-4A which is a STASSIS topology that is licensed from Threshold Ampfliers and my CR-4A which also has a unique coupler that interfaces with the CD-4A (that I never got around to purchasing because it was over $1200 at the time) that does fade ins and timed recordings. The TA-4A/CR-4A combination has beautiful symetry with my B&W DM1800s that I picked up at the same time (all back in the mid 80s)