[net.audio] Cassete Decks - My Nakamichi Story

bob@anwar.UUCP (Bob Erickson) (03/01/85)

Well I bought a Nakamichi for the `quality' too.  I got
the low end BX-150.  I quickly noticed a strange pinging in the
sound of some of the music I had recorded.  Looking at the
physical tape mechanism showed a consistent clicking in the
motion of the takeup hup.

Convincing my audio salesmen there was a problem was the hard part.
Finally he believed and it ended up going through repair 2 times.
The first time they claimed it needed 'lubrication', which they did.
Which did nothing to solve the problem.  Upon a second closer examination
they found that the takeup hub drive edge had a nub on it left over from
the injection molding process used to create the part.  Filing it down
solved that problem.

Hard to believe Nak would let something like that go by.

The second failure was a little easier to show my salesmen.
The high precision drive motor decided to burn out completely.
The deck was only a few weeks old.  At least they repaired it
the first time, replacing the entire drive motor.

When its running, the deck sounds great.  I hope my problems
are simply a freak of nature, and not a lowering of quality
standards at Nak.


 
-- 


========================================================== Be

Company: 	HHB-Softron
		1000 Wyckoff Ave.
		Mahwah NJ 07430
		201-848-8000

UUCP address:	{ihnp4,decvax,allegra}!philabs!hhb!bob

esco@ssc-vax.UUCP (Michael Esco) (03/06/85)

<	a quality control story		>
> 
> When its running, the deck sounds great.  I hope my problems
> are simply a freak of nature, and not a lowering of quality
> standards at Nak.
> 
> Company: 	HHB-Softron

Your story is tame compared to mine. As soon as I had the speakers, receiver,
and Nakamichi 580 I had just bought hooked up, I popped in a tape to listen to
while setting up the turntable, etc. It sounded fine, but I noticed that one
meter had swung over and froze. I hopped in the car and returned the deck before
the store closed for the night. Deck number two would play for about 20 minutes
before something in the transport would bind and the deck would stop. Deck
number three had a bad transport and crinkled several tapes before I discovered
where the drop outs were coming from. Somehow, I let the owner of the store
talk me into trading up to a Nak 581 for number four. It lasted almost a month
before the the record head became somewhat loose and wouldn't stay aligned.

All of these decks came in factory-sealed cartons and checked out fine in the
store the first time. The salesmen began to look somewhat distressed when
they would see me coming with a box in my arms, but to their credit they never
gave me any hassles about replaceing the defective decks (possibly because of my
job at the time: Design Evaluation Engineer, Product Test, NCR E&M San Diego).

Deck number five, also a 581, has been perfection itself (knock on iron-oxide).
For the last four years it has delivered the best sound I've heard in a
cassette. Someday when this machine finally wears out or new features become
too appealing I will probably replace it. What brand will I buy? Why, Nakamichi
of course.

							Michael Esco
							Boeing Aerospace