Oh man.. where do I start.. Very briefly Perfect built, reliable in everything, great looks, MANUAL level/bias calibration (the reason why I bought this one not CR-7a). Sound.. or should I say THE SOUND... very diff to find right words here since it''s just like Mona Lisa.. you can see and feel that it''s a masterpiece but you can''t explain it. Most striking thing - the bass, so deep... Then comes this special "analog taste" of music reproduction which in my humble opinion is just perfect for any sort of life sounds - voice, violin, drums, trumpet, piano etc.. In one word - Dragon''s sound is real, and the older the recording, the greater its ability to bring it back to life.

This funky remote with a wire is a joke. I also miss extra output/input jacks (there''re only 2 of them - 1 input and 1 output, both analog). Price.. as I said, this deck in good condition is becoming quite an investment.

I posted my review earlier but somehow it vanished (weird !) so i post it again. Well, I bought this masterpiece from one of my colleagues who bought it new for the pleasure of owning it (it''s amazing how frequent this case is among primary Dragon users). I simply could not believe how good it was after so many years.... In a nutshell, it''s a great toy which soulds amazingly rich, full, balanced and lovely - the reasons why real music fans chase and probably will be chasing this product in next couple of years. In fact, it''s becoming almost rare and therefore expensive. I admit that I regret now having more CDs than tapes ... My old tapes got a new life with the Dragon and now I believe I was blind planning to dump them. Small piece of advice - before buying, check the deck throughly and parts/service availability in your area.

Similar Products Used:

Revox, Akai

Great recording, Great Playback, Incredible Sound, easy to use and great to look at.

Sorry, not applicable to Nakamichi products.

The Nakamichi Dragon has always been a dream to me until one day that dream became reality. My wife bought me a second hand Dragon that was only 1 month old, the previous owner bought it brandnew but put it up for sale ''cause he switched to cd music. Someone else''s mistake...my luck. Let''s put it this way, CD-Rom music can sometimes sound so clinical, so clean, so soul-less, record the same cd on the Dragon and it puts fire on it. It''s like as if the sound has been magically transformed, the best of both worlds are presented to you in a form that leaves your jaw open for most of the time. Now granted, nothing can beat the precise and clean sound of digital music just as digital music can''t touch the warmth of analog but the Dragon combines the two. After all, let''s face it folks, it''s your ears that are the judge and there isn''t a specification in the world that can change your ears and how you like to hear things. The Dragon does it for me and if you are lucky enough to be in the market to get one...GET ONE!! Your ears will thank you!

tascam234

none

the teac z7000 and the tascan234 and 112 and 3rx are the best deck out there I use decks heavy with cassette collection of over 10,000 cassettes and the 234 from tascam
is a work horse never a glitch and work like the day I got it

Similar Products Used:

nak's teac's sae

Better than average sonics/build quality.

Not as good as the TRUE King of all cassette decks - Tandberg TCD3014!!!

I wanted to say that I have used both the Nakamichi Dragon, as well as owning the Tandberg TCD3014 for over 6 years, and although the Nakamichi Dragon is certainly no slouch, the TCD3014 betters the Dragon in every way. In terms of transparency, bandwidth, and frequency response, I really feel the Tandberg has the sonic edge. And for those of you "Tandberg Cynics" out there who have a question about Tandberg's build quality, my deck has worked flawlessly for 6 years. There truly is a "naturalness" that no other deck I have used can match. And as icing on the cake, the cosmetics and control panel is much better laid-out, and cleaner than the "FAA Flight Tower" approach that Nakamichi employed. There truly is nothing to criticize regarding this exceptional cassette deck. For those of you that have "Nakamichi tunnel-vision" , I guess you'll never know what you're missing .....

Similar Products Used:

Revox B215, Nakamichi CR-7, Teac 8030s

Total adjustability. Low wow and flutter. Wide freq. response.

Auto-stop and change-directions function too sensitive for wide range (i.e., classical) recordings

The "Dragon" is IT when it comes to analog cassette recording. I use it to dub CDs and the results are almost a/b perfect.

Similar Products Used:

Has no equal

durability, long lasting crystal heads, very smooth mechanisem, top notch build qulity, very musical specially in the sweet mids and open highs.

none, rather than tapes are well know to be a recoded formats not a master source.

Oh boy, where do I start? There was a time back in the early 50's through the mid 70's when those days were called the golden age of master tapes. At the late 60's a new format came out called cassette decks, and the first who came out with that idea was philips. Other brands came into the market which were extremely good though, and those were Revox, Studer, Tanberg and Sony. By the early 70's a new Japanese company came out and established them selfs quickly as the best tape deck in the market, and that is Nakamichi ofcourse. Those big range of cassette decks from the 1000 series, 500, 600, 700, Dragon, ZX, RX, MR, BX, CR and many others. This company was the only company to make high end cassette decks, and they made a huge success all over the world, I read about their history and the company is the brain child of the designer him self Mr. Niro Nakamichi. I had my eyes on the Dragon for a very long time, and since I was fortunate to find a one at my friends place beautifully sitting on its rack, basiclly collecting dust cause he didn't use it that often. We agreed on a price then he decided to sell it to me, so I was another lucky owner of this legendary product.
From the open highs to the lushive mids, and I never heard a cassette deck which could produce a firm extreme deep bass. Man, this product is realy something. I had the opportunity to compare it head to head with other products, and that is Pioneer, Kenwood, Sony, Philips, Akai, Teac, Aiwa and none of them can come close to this lovely huge beast. Other brands sort of mix things together to produce music, but Nakamichi on the other hand, produce every single nusance from a tape, the details were very clear you can hear instruments floating everywhere, the soundstage was very wide and deep, and layers of the vocals, separattion between instruments was very real and holographic as if they were singing right in front of you. The dragon was very true and warm to the recording. The better the recording the more you will enjoy and appreciate this machine. You will miss half of the fun if you don't record on it, you can barely tell the diffrence when you play back on the same machine between the original source and the recordable one. Nakamichi is better suit for TDK tapes, I use a high position IEC II/ type II tapes called TDK SA-X and the results was realy rewarding and very analogue. Well there I have said it all, The Dragon is the best cassette deck the was made and the best that there ever will be. Long live the Dragon..

Similar Products Used:

Nakamichi 1000ZXL, CR 7, ZX 9, RX 505.

has everything avaiable to a professional sound recordist...and more

none

The very best cassette deck "ever" money can buy. I was on the hunt for a mint Dragon for years that I finally found in the US. The person "Bill Trail" had hardly ever used the unit...not a scratch...came with all original manaual, microphones, mic-mixer, carton etc. This is an absolute beauty when it comes to sound recording. Nothing comes close in terms of features available. The quality of recording is near original...I really enjoy the time I need to spend when it comes to setting up the machine for recording. The only thing that makes similar recordings on tape is my 1/4" Teac 1000R reel-to-reel.

Similar Products Used:

Onkyo TA 2800, Sony TC-K8B

Ultimate cassete playback machine which happens to make great recordings as well

Needs tender loving care to deliver that ultimate performance. Surgically clean capstans, pinch rollers, heads and guides. And well adjusted reel tensions. Still eats up a couple of tapes a year. Think of it as a Italian super sportscar, and you'll get the idea

This is indeed the ultimate cassette playback machine, and it does a wonderful job in recording/playback as well. Some say the ZX9 or CR7 are better at making recordings, but as I haven't done a comparison, I can't comment on that. All I can say is that recordings I made in 1985 on Maxell UDXL2 on the BX300, when played back on the Dragon still sound as good as I've ever heard on compact cassette. Comparison done over speakers (Dolby not used during recording or playback, to avoid transient smearing). Hiss probably not acceptable for critical listening at louder levels on headphones though.

One word of warning. If you think this machine will make your entire pre-recorded tape collection come to life, you will be disappointed. There seemed to be a total disregard by cassette duplicators about the quality of their "bin masters", the loop which is the master tape that the cassette is duplicated from. The only consistently good sound from pre-recorded cassettes are those marked Digilog, where the master source is a digital source which didn't wear out. My copy of Kamakiriad by Donald Fagen is almost indistinguishable from CD on my Dragon.

Similar Products Used:

Nakamichi Cassette Deck 2, Nakamichi BX300, cheap JVC dubbing deck.

I have owned many decks over the years. This includes other Naks (1000ZXL, 680ZX, 700ZXL), Revox, and Teac. The only one I had never sold is the Dragon.
It is that good!

Built Quality, Sound reproduction, sophistication

Replacement parts, qualified(knowledgeable)service
center other then in Tokyo, Japan

Purchased my Dragon in 1990 brand spankin' new during my military tour of duty in Japan for 1,400 and also bought most of the Naks 7 series components (PA-7II, CA-7, ST-7) and for those of you High-end fans knows what are these compo's, and match it with a pair of B&W 802 series II speakers. Proper care has kept these compo's in showroom condition considering they are all a decade old. As with the Dragon cassette deck a blind test versus Pioneer Elite CLD-95 Reference Laser/CD player has resulted in draw, meaning they both sound equally well in the naked ear using stax electrostatic headphones. need I say more!?
this is where digital meets the analog world! HONESTLY!

Similar Products Used:

Revox's, Tanberg's, Akai's and Aiwa's