Nakamichi's 1980s BX 150 Cassette Deck Gave Ferrari Performance for Ford Capri Money
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 14 ธ.ค. 2024
- If Diana was 'the people's Princess', then the BX-150 was 'the people's Nakamichi'! Although not exactly cheap, it was affordable as high end cassette decks went in the mid 1980s - and cheap for anything bearing this legendary name.
Even in 2023, Mike and David remain big fans of Compact Cassette, and the guys are still making mixtapes for one another. Trouble is, there aren't many serious sounding, serviceable decks around anymore that don't cost the Earth - but the guys reckon this is one of them!
Each episode of Hi-Fi Riff features the guys' unedited, unexpurgated views about all manner of weird and wonderful hi-fi designs. Business executive Mike has a wealth of knowledge from previous hi-fi retail experience, and David has written about hi-fi for thirty years. Now Editor-in-Chief of StereoNET, he's picked up a few things along the way.
So relax and enjoy some one-take hi-fi riffing - and please leave your comments below. And don’t forget to hit the Subscribe button, this one goes up to eleven!
The eighties-tastic title tune is called ‘UFO/Mike’s Jumper’, and used with the express permission of our old pal and rights holder Simon Lythe.
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Great episode! I bought a Nakamichi DR-1 with my father's inheritance money back in '94. I once heard some speed instability and was mortified, but it turned out to be the dodgy TDK D90 tape that was the culprit. Even a budget ferric tape like that on it can put other great decks using metal in the shade. It has never once put a foot wrong. Absolutely unflappable and consistently flawless. It isn't just the glorious sound quality that puts a smile on my face every time, it is the astonishing fact that this amazing sound filling the room comes from a set of cogs, wheels and rubber belts. I also love the fact it doesn't have remote control so that I have to get up out of my chair to fast forward or rewind, turn the tape over every now and then, and I enjoy the time spent cleaning the heads and adjusting the record levels and bias just so. I don't mind the small effort compared to the effort the musicians are putting in for me to enjoy. Isn't that just a more amazing and joyous experience than streaming? Decks like these are a reminder that HiFi is more than just specs and the end result.
Great story, thanks for sharing.
I remember making my best cassette tape recordings with a BX150, back in time. Just use a Linn LP12 with the usual suspects of tonearms and cartridge, together with a Naim preamp, and you have got terrific recordings, on the best tape material, using a very hot recording level, without any noise reduction at all. - We once sold them like crazy, I wonder where they all are now.
This is my new favourite yt channel.
I believe B&W have now completely stopped servicing them now though.
Thank you so much :-) We love making the Riffs. Mike
I bought the BX-150 when I was a student in the 1980s. Somehow, I managed to scrape the money to get it. I remember it being quite expensive - nearly $500, albeit Canadian. I once recorded an album on it with my Dual 510 and Shure cartridge, then played back both the tape and record simultaneously. When I switched back and forth between them my friends had a hard time hearing any difference. Not bad for a two-head budget model. The deck is still in use today with a friend that bought it from me in the early 90s - one repair (I think a worn idler) and it's still going. Nakamichi really did make some great sounding gear. Their Stasis amps were also great, but I don't know whether they caught on in the UK.
two head or three doesn´t make it sound better, there are many decks with only two heads that sound amazing good compared to three head decks ,only one can monitorize the recording which is great, some of my friends when i had at my home a 3 head deck , it was the CT-F1250 because i had bought my second integrated amplifier a SA-9800 with some JBL that i had already ,by the way a great amplifier and at the time my favorite turntable from pioneer ,the PL-560 with original cartridge and stylus. They couldn´t understand, "how can it be?you´re recording this album now and the sound is the cassette already?hum!!! i was recording a Elton John album ,the one that as Daniel a 73, i think LP
I know! I’ve had (and still have) the BX-125 and it wasn’t ‘Ford Capri’ money at all compared to other brands. To be fair, it was significantly more affordable than any 3 head Nakamichi and to me it did sound much better than most of similarly priced 3 head decks from other brands.
.....Love you two riffing away!!!!
I once had the great pleasure of touching and listening to a gold plated Nakamichi cassette deck (with equalisers) that was housed in a beautifully crafted wooden enclosure. This was in the mid 1980s at a HiFi shop in Leeds that sold Pink Triangle. I forget the name of that shop. It cost a fortune but to-date the most fascinating item of HiFi I have ever seen.
I need to go for a lie down! Mike
After searching the internet it appears it was a Nakamichi 1000ZXL. The place was Headingley HiFI.
Good one gents. I still have my Nakamichi BX-2 with the upgraded gear drive transport (install back in the late 80’s/ early 90’s. Lovely machine that still sounds great.
Had a nakamichi box-125e , put a lot of decks against it , no comparison at all, the nak always sounded the most like the original
Bx-125e
Yep - natural is a very good description. They were such great value back in the day, better value than Nak's high end stuff in my view.
Another great episode...thanks both. I for one would love a curated wander around David's collection. Make it so 👍
Thanks Mr Sid. We'll definitely cover more of my prized machines in future, that's for sure. What's not to love about cassette decks!
Nice riff with lovely bit of history thrown in. Thank Chaps. PS. Never owned a Nak best I could do was Aiwa ADF 460 if memory serve. Duel Capstan 3 head with Dolby B C and S as I recall. Good with TDK SA and metal. Happy days never the less.
Thanks Steve - nothing wrong with that Aiwa, a very decent performer in its day!
My first "serious" deck was a National Panasonic RS 600US top loader with absolutely no dolby types I through III tape selection and virtually useless meters you mastered but it sounded pretty good on genuine chromedioxide tape and then got a Akia GXC 325 dual capstan single head one which bowled me over.
That said I soon moved towards super ferrics like Maxells XL1-S and TDK AR-X which baised up right were amazing provided your deck had the guts to fully exploit it.
Good memories - and you're spot on about the tapes. Late 1980s TDK AR-X in particular was breathtaking - you could ram crazy levels onto it, and it lapped it up.
Late 1980s ferric tapes really came of age, they were vastly better than the ferrics formulations of just 5 years before. Early 1990s Maxell XL-1S was superb, too.
My first cassette player was an small boombox. I got it when I was 10. I use to tape the Saturday evening top 20 R&B and Hip Hop in the 80s. My aunt's borrowed it so much my dad said no more it doesn't leave the house.
I bought the bx100 for 300 bucks canadian in 83. Great unit for the price. Same unit with a few less features. In a closet somewhere around here.
Time to dust it down :-) Mike
I still have my BX-150E, bought new when it first came out in the UK. It's in need of a new belt kit now though, unfortunately.
Great stuff as always, guys. I love cassette decks too. It's just a shame that people ask comedy prices for the good ones (and the NOS blanks). Takes some of the fun out of it all IMHO. The other issue is that the kind of people that are able and willing to get these things running properly are few and far between these days...
The price is based on what people will play
I have repaired loads of them (over 150) for fun, the problem is if you want to do a descent job you need some equipment, special cassettes and gauges to adjust the decks to a standard. The original tools and cassettes are practically unobtainable now. Especially Nakamichi's classic transport needs a load of them for servicing. That's the main reason that there aren't a lot of people which can offer a professional service now. Regarding prices, well some people re-list over-priced decks in the hope that someone has (very) deep pockets and doesn't really care about the price. If you wanted to get very good decks for a decent price that would have been about 15 years ago...
I jumped-on a Nak BX300 when it showed up on the used market. I use a badger -hair shaving brush to dust
Inspired! Mike
Revox/Studer is my fav and remember comparing a Dragon with a B215 and I just fell in love with the B215
I loved those and they were built like tanks! We should definitely do a riff on one, I'm sure David must have one in his museum!
Mike
@@mikeyevs YOU MOST DEF MUST. I remember comparing a B215 to reasonably priced CD and Dac combo. I was taken away how good it was. If I had some spare cash I'd buy one and use it as a main unit Mike they were that good. Well it's Swiss don't you know 🙂
I've been looking at these Sony SONY TA's amplifiers, briefly mentionned in the video. They mostly have rave reviews, for not a lot of 2023 money. Very cool indeed.
Best of luck - let's hope we don't end up in an eBay bidding war if one comes up!
First hifi included a Trio cassette deck and in the 80’s really enjoyed not in same class as yours 😊
The BX150 looks a lot like my old Nakamichi MR2. I couldn’t give it away(around 2010). I remember the day I gave it to Oxfam. Wish I still had it.
I want to cry. Mike
I have a Nakamichi BX-150 I got from a friend and I love it. I recently found a JVC KD-A7 for really cheap and look forward to tuning it up to see how it sounds in comparison. The JVC is really heavily built and quite nice looking for a silver unit. Its spectrum analyzer display is cool in its own way. But yeah, Nakamichi decks are awesome. I particularly like the beautiful black finish with gold lettering and red/green lights.
Another quality piece of Hifi that I regret selling💵💸🙄
Indeed I have a CR1 absolutely mint.Nakamichi sounds so good 😊 so natural
For me the 480 series (480,481 & 482) were my favourite late 70’s early 80’s decks. Never liked the 580 series much due to their wider cases.
First timer love your appreciation of the vintage stuff .
Brilliant, thank you 👍
Mike
you showed the LX700 before the 1000, the zx-9 when working was my favorite
Got a Nak 700 needs new RCA'S I'll do it this week
Yes! Got one of these bad boys!
Actually just realised it's the BX 125 I've got!
@@dean6816 Pretty much the same, though!
@@MrVinylista Yeah, wish I had a Dragon though! One day maybe???
@@dean6816 One day, perhaps! The Dragon is a lovely 'lottery winner' object but the best Nak I've heard (and owned) was the CR-7E, by a long way. It is superb and I bitterly regret selling mine. I could record +10dB with TDK D, with minimal distortion. It just made the music sound so powerful and alive. Probably the best cassette deck the company ever made, including the Dragon. The ZX-9 looked cooler (had one of those too) but wasn't as good sonically.
@@MrVinylista Thanks David I'll keep that in mind. I also have 3 other decks, one is a Teac V7000 which makes nice recordings.
the earlier model looks like a 4-track recorder
It's a beast! Mike
Picked up a BX-100E tonight 😁 It amazes me how little research the seller did before putting it on FB marketplace for £25. It’s in lovely condition, works perfectly and sounds amazing. One happy Steve!
I still own four Nakamichi cassette decks. One has broken but the other three are working very well. Having tried other brands including Aiwa, Technics, Yamaha and JVC it was always the Nakamichi machines that impressed me. Put simply, they just sound more musical.
I'm receiving my bx 150 tomorrow. So hyped
I have a budget Nakamichi I think the BX100 or 200 sat in my shed as the drive belts have melted along with a couple of Yamaha decks with the same problem so I purchased a direct drive Technics so that I don’t get that problem again.
i have owned two Naks, a 700 (faTASTIC) and a 4080 (I think) which was also very good and sold to the one and only responder to mu ad for exactly what I asked for it. my friend had an Aiwa with Dolby S that was excellent. later, I got a 3 head Sony with S that was also very good, it could calibrate for the tape you were using. it ultimately failed due to a plastic part that was no longer available from available sources. the other item I had was the Tandberg TCD300 3 head, 2 motor, 2 captstan deck that could retrieve the imaging/soundstaging that was recorded.
i mostly used my cassette decks to capture friends' LPs as well as my own to play in the car.
on a parallel note, I owned a Ford Capri V^ that I loved, it was quite fast. my other car at the time was an Opel Rally that handled better than an Alfa Giulia.
i don´t know where you buy your nakamichi´s some were expensive but less expensive than some brands top end decks ,i can give the example of the B215 from Revox ,the Teac that i don´t recall the reference but much expensive than a BX-300 years later, or the Phase linear 7000 that pioneer owned this brand, even today after start to record cassettes again in 2018 and i have 67 cassette decks and boxes filled with tdk sa-x and sa cassettes(the ones still built properlly in the 90´s) the ones that could fit in my old 1971 mercedes 350SE, and open some boxes the fill in the gaps between the boxes because in a warehouse 400km´s from my house they were going to incinerate everything and thousands of cassettes were i only took what could be fitted in my biggest car the merc.my grandfathers car, i didn´t pay nothing for them but i put gasoline in the merc. and BP 100octanes that being more expensive in big travels the car didn´t drink so much, but i put 140€ of gasoline in 2001and the tank was filled when starting the trip, i tried to find a ford transit but the friend who had one for his businesss had travelled with it, to get ordered hi-fi components in Lisbon, Portugal ,he owns since early 80´s a hi-fi ,music store ,he almost closed it in the 90´s but he survived and now his selling a lot of turntables and many others components that people want but when testing them the sound is horrible and prices between a 1.000€ and 2.000€, i say this but most of my better systems were given to me by family, i grew up in a very musical family ,i bought once a SX-838 pioneer receiver but after 3 monthes i received a spec.-1 ,spec.-2 Turntable PLC-590 20 series ,4 HPM-150 speakers,a tx tuner a sg-9500 equalizer ,a ct-f1000 cassette deck for free and i´ve boxed it last weekend to use a Exclusive pioneer system with the C3 control amplifier two M6´s mono blocks a P3 turntable and a pair of 2401 twin speakers ,a reel deck from tascam 1971 model and the 1000ZXL that i received from my father and as extra turntable a technics SL-1000mkII from 79, this in a big room where i also have another more recent system, that as in old wooden cabinets wih glass doors 15.000 vinyl records in perfect condition, 8.000 cds, 500 reels that say "original master tapes" which aren´t because the tape as home use size ,cassettes i never counted them but many thousands well kept all far from humidity or excessive heat, must be real good the BX-150 ,i only know the BX-300 and the BX-2(maybe the best deck ever made by nakamichi)it works since 1982,december, nice video if you have more i´ll check them
the swedish 72 nak inside deck as similarities with the 1000 ,the hiden part as maybe all functions of a good 90´s deck and mine works as new, i think it was repaired more times than cassettes played or recorded
"happy with the hiss"? (loves old records)
Nakamichi's are great cassette decks, but much of the reputation was due to excellent marketing. I owned one. If you want to simply get down to performance, $ for $ they were generally surpassed by Tandberg. 🙂
Is it better than my Aiwa AD F660?
Different. The Aiwa has a brighter, crisper and more lively sound with a less three dimensional soundstage. You could say it sounds more 'digital' than the Nak, which is smoother and more three dimensional. Obvious caveats about which tape you use, of course. I'd say the AD-F770 is clearly ahead, but the cheaper 660 is closely matched. HX Pro on the Aiwas is a big benefit that the Nak doesn't have, making the 660 less tape-sensitive. Both great decks in their day!
@@MrVinylista The top of the line Aiwa for this era they say was nipping at the heels of the Nak Dragon and the reviews for the Aiwa 660 are pretty impressive, you can even loop favorite parts of music to keep repeating them. thanks for the great reply!
@@samiam247 Absolutely. If you look back in our 'Videos' section you'll see that we reviewed the 660.
I have the 770 and the 660, and really rate them both - although the 990 is of course the real beast.
I think that era of Aiwa cassette decks really pushed the game forward, and forced Nakamichi to respond with products like this, and later the CR series.
Hi fellas!
This post is going to be different from the ones I usually do as I'd like to address whether the cassette deck in question is a good choice for someone interested in getting into cassettes for the first time.
The short answer is NO.
The long answer is No, this is a cassette deck for enthusiasts and by that I mean for people who have a vast number of tapes and at least a couple of cassette decks to choose from.
Here's why - it is very, very basic, though it might appear to have many controls on the front, all of these would be replaced with a single button and a knob on a more modern deck - literally! Those push buttons on the right are there to choose a tape type for recording and tape equalization for playback - something that would be done automatically on a more modern deck and there would not be a single button for this. There is no way to set the bias level for a particular variety of tape so the machine is not as universal of a recorder. There is no music search so it can't skip between the tracks.
While a newcomer to cassettes might like all of these, here are some practical reason to choose something else. First, it is a Nakamichi so the price will most certainly be higher on the 2nd hand market. Second, it is a Nakamichi and because the brand was considered 'premium' at the time, the machines sold in fewer numbers which means spare parts will be less available and therefore higher price. Third, excellent as they were, buying a Nakamichi does not guarantee higher quality when buying used because this will be highly dependent on the condition of the machine. There are still Nakamichi specialists out there and they can restore a machine to its factory specifications but expect it to cost more than it normally would for some other brand of a machine. In some cases, it can cost a lot more!
Before purchasing a cassette deck, reset your expectations and be aware that a lower-end / entry-level machine in pristine condition will be a better choice than a top-drawer machine that's had a hard life or is otherwise knackered. There are no exceptions to this rule.
For a beginner, something like the early to mid-nineties Sony or Pioneer will really be more than good enough. You can start there and believe me, it is far better than most of us cassette enthusiasts started with! You might discover it's all you need or you might discover you don't actually like tapes at all! if your child expresses interest in a piano, you don't necessarily go out and immediately buy a Steinway.
Cheers!
I loved you Technics SLP999 review,is really that good on its own dac and not much difference to when you played it through your Hugo Dac ?
One for @MrVinylista
I bought a Nakamichi RX-505 in 1983 here in Australia the same year I got married. It was VERY expensive! Total rubbish now in 2024.@@Hi-FiRiff
I have one great deck
the dual capstan doesn´t make it sound better ,only a better pass (or passage way)to the cassette tape and in some situations one more thing to stop the deck or destroy tapes
Bx150 sounds like crap compared to 480.. DR3 even worse.