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Review 3 of 3
Price Paid:
$450.00
from San Francisco Stereo Summary:
You're in the royal burial chamber with Indiana Jones when the two of you force open the Pharoah's crypt. Your luck has held out as the Tomb robbers left the crypt unopened. You then find the Pharoah wearing a pair of STAX ear phones (he IS the Pharoah, after all) which is connected to a box marked 'WALKMAN'. In fact, the Pharoah's entire crypt is littered with shinny clear boxes containing spooled tapes approximately 1/4" in diameter. Tears of joy stream down your face as you realize you have stumbled upon the Pharoah's secret Rock N Roll cache containing hundreds of hours of off the air recordings from his favorite College Radio Shows, 'KMVR 89.5 FM " Mark Bradley's Black Vinly" KDVS 90.3 "Todays Abberation; Tomorrow's Fashion" show. You shutter just thinking about the Post-Punk Pre-Grunge 80's musics he was grooving to ("Cocteau Twins, Urban Verbs, 17 Pygmies, The Lucy Show") that the Pyrimids describe but have been out of print for thousands of years. What do you do? What DO you do?!!!
Get on E-Bay and grab yourself a used Nakamichi DR-3!!!
Strengths:
4 track, 2 channel stereo, 2 head cassette deck with a Frequency Response of 20-20,000HZ +-3dB with NORMAL Tape!!! Wow and Flutter -0.11% and its Signal to Noise Ratio is better than 64dB Dolby B NR and better than 70dB Dolby C NR!!!
Even Three Head discrete decks at the time couldn't match the DR-3's stats!!!
Nakamichi came out with three decks in the early nineties the "Pappa Bear" DR-1 Deck, the "Momma Bear" DR-2 Deck and the "Baby Bear" DR-3 deck. The DR-1 is way over engineered and feature rich for cassette technology (since you would be crazy taping music when better methods exist, you are simply throwing away good money on features you'll never use) and the DR-2 is do-able if the price is right (expect to pay $2-300.00 Near Mint condition).
FYI, Nakamichi quickly withdrew the DR-3 from the market because it was cannibalizing sales---it was 70% of a DR-2 at 1/2 the price of the DR-2!!!
Weaknesses:
The DR-3 is only a two headed deck and the heads are not the best available (Chrystalloy)---I think they are only SENDUST heads. So What? The tape transport is nearly identical to all three decks and you're kicking 20-20,000HZ+-3dB with a SIgnal to Noise ratio of 70+dB Dolby C NR!!!
Two heads means you can't monitor as you record---but so what? You shouldn't be using Cassette to record music---just playback and media conversion.
Besides which, NOBODY KNOCKS a NAK!!!
If you have the where withall, have the bench technician bias the bias setting---it has a tendancy to drift from the factory setting. Once set, don't dick with the bias knobs. Similar Products Used:
Yamaha, Rotel, Denon, Sony, NAD, Mitsubitsi, etc.
Again, tape deck technology (cassette tape) is a 1965 technology that has reached pinnacle termination EONS ago. If you NEED a tape deck to play your old stuff, You should only be looking for the best tape transport system and heads system---and as I said previous, NOBODY KNOCKS A NAK!!
Me? Go for the Prestige Purchase. When your Great, GrandChildren fight over your posessions like that scene in Zorba the Greek, you don't want them to be making fun of you---(like buying a cheap Philco instead of a Edison Company Victrollia), you want them to say "Great Great Grandpa owned a Nak; he KNEW QUALITY; He had style---now where did he put that Rolex of his?!!!
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