I never meant for my reply to the original poster's question to stir up
such a hornets nest about Nakamichi. I was simply of the opinion he
might be better off having his older Sony ES dual cassette repaired
rather than attempting to replace it with a newer model that might not
perform as well. I myself have an older Sony TC-K700ES single well deck
that has given me years of dependable service, only requiring one repair
for a broken spring that opens the cassette well door. I had the repair
done by the Sony repair center in Plano, TX, and while expensive, they
did a really good job and did a complete alignment, etc., while they
were working on it.

AFAIK, Nak never made or manufactured a dual cassette deck and sold it
under their own name so perhaps the thread should be renamed, which I did.

However, an interesting question has been raised about whether tapes
made on a Nakamichi will play back OK on another good non-Nakamichi deck
and vice-versa.

I've never owned a Nakamichi, only Sony ES and Pioneer Elite cassette
decks and they play back each other's tapes just fine (note: I've only
ever used Maxell or TDK tape, if that matters), and they sound pretty
darn good, too, no matter which deck I use.

If there is a difference on tapes made on a Nakamichi, can someone
please provide a brief, coherent response as to why they may (or may
not) play back OK on another good non-Nakamichi deck and vice-versa.

I'm curious about this now given all the discussion.

Thanks.

Steven Sullivan wrote:
William Sommerwerck wrote:

The fellow that runs the site claims that his company serviced and sold Naks
for years. His FAQ seems pretty thorough. I don't see anything there about an
EQ difference. It also includes this entry, which again notes a design

difference

between Nak heads and others':


Q: Why does Nakamichi use different calibration tapes and are they really

necessary?

A: As the head gap is different than other brands, the tape must be specially

cut

using equipment that lines up properly with the Nak head. Using other tapes
will not result in the accurate alignment and bias/level calibrations
necessary to make a Nakamichi sound as it should.


This is simply incorrect. It has nothing to do with Nakamichi heads, or the
heads for any other kind of analog tape recorder, regardless of format.


The Compact Cassette format had standards established by Philips. One of these
covered track width and location. No company could manufacture a deck with
non-standard track widths and/or locations and expect to get a Philips license.


Furthermore, head alignment has nothing to do, per se, with bias and level
calibration.


Doing some more googling, I see the 'head gap difference' is a widely-distributed
belief (e.g., in the grateful dead tapers groups),
but I've also seen at least one more authoritative claim about an EQ
difference (from David Carlstrom).

Woudl you mind if I quoetd some of your posts in a n email to SonicSense and ELS,
the Nak repair folks? If nothing else, they may need to update the Nak FAQ
I quoted.