Nakamichi Cassette Deck Repairs.. Yes I am a something of a magician with these…and can sort out 99% of the issues these face…. but remember we are fighting 40+ years of ageing trying to make it perfect, with no new manufacturer specific parts..like heads. But 500+ machines sorted so far- I have plenty of experience on Nakamichi’s,
I’ve tried to write an informative section below here with lots of good info.. so please enjoy.
Costs: I’ve tried to give ideas at the bottom here of some typical costs for certain issues on specific models.
PLAY heads. The most common GAME OVER.. If a head coil fails then we stop and discuss. New heads are just not available- nor are usable copies from other Makes.. they were unique. Pulled parts from Ebay is the only option.. and you’ll pay £200-£400 a set !
Do you want your Nakamichi perfect? Many can be got back to factory fresh, but others can’t due to wear.. If you are after perfection please TELL me NOW so I can take that on board.
Instead you may just be happy to get the deck basically back working right and aren’t worried about changing bucket loads of components for the sake of it..ie full re-caps etc. This will be a significantly cheaper repair of course.
When you do send a machine in. I’d like to know.. What’s the history of its use etc? Run ok in last couple of years- or not run for 2 decades? I don’t need War& Peace…but a quick rundown really gives me the picture. Too many machines turn up in a box with just a name and address! [some not even the address!] …I don’t then know how good you want it or how much you are prepared to pay to get it there.
What common problems have they got?.
Machines not used for many years. They suffer from seized mechanisms needing a strip and lube. Old orange film capacitors, shorted electrolytic capacitors, failed transistors and occasionally motor problems. Then there is drift on alignments and calibrations. I can sort out most of these yes.
Lots of reel motors go dead spot. Some come right with servicing , some don’t. I can now get new reel motors.
The cam motor may be dead-spotted/failed and/or its worm gear is worn….or the 3 switches on the cam unit are noisy. The biggest headache at the moment are these problems.. I’d love to have a complete new assembly to pop in there- but it has a very specific job to do in a very specific timeframe… and locks up the computer if it doesn’t. BX series DR series Cass series CR series etc Some top Teac decks use these mechanisms too. There are several methods I use to strip and refurb these mode motor units and so far, doing a full strip and rebuild cures them 100% and these seem to be running ok.
Once serviced, I then run them on and off for several days from cold overnight etc to see if they are going to be reliable. Neither of us wants to have to send it back and forward in the post due to a gremlin….(and yes they do have lots of gremlins)
LX3 LX5 480Z 580Z 600 680Z and the 3 head versions 582Z 682Z
Rough costs ~£140 to £200 for belts and a mech service.
Add £50-£100 to replace orange film caps- run-in and do a full calibration.
Essentially the models with the early 2 plate mech. If this model has sat 40 years lovingly abandoned in a damp attic.. you’re in trouble.. Seizing up, and dead or smoking electronics… Occasionally motors fail, heads fail and worn out ones as they are dual capstan.. will chew tapes. These models have from 16 to 40+ ubiquitous ‘orange’ capacitors. These aren’t electrolytic… but film types that can ‘leak’ and go short circuit or go open circuit. These can fail at any time, so usually its considered good practice to change them all. The 3 head models are still worth good money , so should be worth spending the £200-£300 on them for a service and orange recap. The single head decks only have a handful. I recommend doing them on all these models. Electrolytic capacitors can give problems, moreso the big ones and we can look at changing some that have worked the hardest… though it usually isn’t worth the cost to do them all. (See Dragon costings below to get more of an idea on electrolytics)
More recent models..
BX1 BX125 BX300 RX202 RX303 RX505 Cassette 1,2 &3 DR1 CR1 CR2 CR3 CR4 CR5.
Rough costs ~£80 – £160 for belts and a mech service. [+ motors ~£30 ea if needed]
Add £40-£90 to replace orange film caps- run-in and do a full calibration.
All solid, well made and pretty reliable. Some have a few of the orange caps..
Most of these models have 2 main Achilles heel issues.
Reel motors sticking with a burnt in dead spot. They start to play but stop within a half second. I have a good source of new long shaft motor for the reel now. There is however a really awkward mech strip-down to do to get the whole reel assembly out and swap the motor so it isn’t a 5 minute job, but very satisfying once done.
The other issue you can get is cam motor problems. You may get the heads coming up and down continuously – or ERR on the screen or a jam. The worm gear can jam, the motor can be deadspotted/ duff brushes or the 3 leaf switches can give trouble. Sadly there are no spares for any of these but I can now sort them out with a good dose of going over.
These models can also suffer from some of the latching switches, like Dolby etc stopping holding on. No real easy fix for that other than finding another deck to rob, or just jam in the button.
Electrolytic capacitors can give problems, moreso the big ones and we can look at changing some that have worked the hardest… though unless its one of the rarer and pricier models like a CR7 CR70.. isn’t worth the cost to do them all. (See Dragon costings below to get more of an idea on electrolytics)
Nakamichi DRAGONs (CR7 CR7e CR70 and ZX7 / ZX9)
I have seen 60+ dragons and numerous of the others in the past few years so am very familiar with them and all their faults. I get a number of different parts of mechanism seizing up.. both pinch roller arms, the auto Azimuth unit clicking, the tape drifting and problems with the calibration on what is a very complex deck.
As many were/ still are 110volt, we see a few that have been smoked on 240 volts too !!
I am able to systematically go over these decks and look to sort out properly all the issues as if it were my own deck, so it will be as good as possible. I will report back as we go so that we can discuss any issues. Very worn decks will be difficult to get back perfect…especially with the NAAC azimuth centring system fighting with the mechanism, running the head azimuth back and fwd and probably clicking away at the end of it’s travel. Adding a reverse play on the dragon gave more problems as the motors have to reverse and change speeds to hold the tape tight… Something that we often get trouble with too is the direct drive motor control board, weak drive, stopping … either straight away or after some hours.
The 34 orange caps should probably be changed. Only the last few thousand didn’t have these so any serial under say 26000 will have them. Most will not be faulty, but at this age now you get random failure of odd ones… presenting as intermittent crackles/popping… or a loss of one channel of playback, record…or faults in the cal tones or Naac if in that part of the circuit… There is a lot of wiring spaghetti between the 3 internal boards which makes changing half of these really tricky, but I have drawers full of all the special values they use and am familiar with changing these . They need a few hours running once done to bed in before then running through a calibration to get performance back to spec. If anyone does their own cap change – beware the ones in the cal tone circuit and avoid changing unless really necessary… You have no way to know how to get the tones back to standard without having compared vs a good one first! Then you are trying to set it up to wrong values… no chance to get it right. You have to set the machine correct on the scope first , then after changing the cal cct caps, reset all the metering.
Other forums etc mention the benefits of changing the many electrolytic capacitors to improve the sound. There are more than 100 of these to do…again with awkward access. As a guide… yes its worth doing them if you want it the best it can be… especially if it has had many years without being run at all, as this will have degraded the old ones the most. I will always suggest we fit Nichicon or Rubycon ZLG or similar known audiograde ones. These are around £1 each rather than 30-40 pence, but not silly costs like some makes can be. Some of the special ones are much larger too , so fitting them back in place is really awkward.
Maybe consider a halfway option here… as replacing the bigger electrolytics used for the main regulation will be the most beneficial. These have worked the hardest… and odd ones do fail and run very hot. So a partial recap.
Rough costings to work on dragons to give you an idea.
Mechanism service + belts £175
Add on the orange capacitors and the larger electrolytics + a full calibration of the Naac / cal circuits £180
Change all 80+ electrolytics as well as the above ~£150-175.
There are some that want to look at changing many op-amps for newer spec ones. I don’t offer to do this… I did one and encountered too many issues trying to get the calibration right again due to the new chips gains and frequency responses changing too much. So I don’t offer this service now.
Click here for more info on what the issue is with the orange capacitors. Nice site I found.
The worst models tend to be the LX3, LX5/480/580/582/680/682/700 series /Dragon
The later BX, RX, CR, DR & Cass 1/2/3 series can still give me hours of trouble, but are generally better to do and more reliable.
* I fix all things I know about or can find.. and run test them for days… but niggles DO always still occur, they can be just so unreliable. Revox were the same.. you always fix a deck at least 3 times… Although some components are new.. the rest of the deck is all still 30-40 years old and as you run it, other old parts keep failing…so I keep testing until it stays working for many days!.
* While you can almost always get a usable playback deck, there are some that take infinite amounts of work to get to record. (LX3, LX5 , 500/600 early ones). So it may be more economical to just get a player perhaps?
* I have a busy workshop with 150+ jobs to get on with, so spending days & days on these is awkward and so as I juggle work, some will sit around for weeks sometimes in busy periods.
*Be careful posting in, as any faulty returns involve multiple posting back/fwd.. something neither of us wants. Do make sure each of the 8 corners is packed with spongy padding so that if dropped, it will bounce and not smash. The mechanism on all early machines inc Dragons is held to the front chassis by 4 plastic blocks and it doesn’t take much of a shock now to break these 4 old brittle plastic lugs. Often I get them in with the mech hanging loose… and sometimes this happens on the way back too.
If your deck is very precious to you….please think a bit more about how to pack it right
Costings:
I would expect ANY deck to be 2 hours work (plus many hours of oversight testing), so likely costs are £120-£150 labour plus whatever spares I use. Some decks where we have many mechanical issues and the caps to change will be 4 hours work+..so ~£250+parts
1000ZXL or 700, LX3/5 and early ones
Please note if you have the 1000ZXL or bad examples of the 700 / other early ones (500 550 600) I may not be able to really take these on- lets discuss and decide first. I can do a lot , but there’s an awful lot they will need.
If I do offer to take a look, I usually will just set a clock ticking and report back as the repair progresses with what issues have come to light in a given time and what more it needs to solve and sort it. Many we can get back to playing… but recording takes so much extra time to work right….The 1000ZXL has some very specific issues that come up- obsolete chips are one and they are so awkward to try to decipher the poor schematic scan that is out there.
Any other model not mentioned..
They are all cassette decks following the same principles, so won’t present much of a problem getting to grips with.
There is no import of spares now from abroad for any model..… so new heads, proper rollers, or other parts are just not available….Some pinch rollers do turn up … and I have a few too.. but the small one for the left side is rarer than unicorn poop. I do have a rather good technique to re-scrub the rubber surfaces to get the top layer of hardened rubber off and thus rejuvenate a tyre or roller. Not all will come good, but it does give another 10+ year life to a deck where it works.
Rubber tyres and belts are available … And I have solutions for the dead-spotted reel/cam motors and capacitor problems we commonly see on Nakamichi’s. I have new sources of motors (though Chinese) and I have plenty of raided parts, particularly the Jap made Technics motors that they made and they never fail !, so we can get a quality reliable fix. Just bear in mind though that access to the 2 screws to fix the motor is so difficult, more than half the deck has to be dismantled, so the time element is considerable… but whilst doing a mech service is a good idea to make it bullet proof.
Cassette Heads… wear out, or get dirty from the oxide on tapes clogging them up. If your deck has done many miles, the sound will go dull as a channel has physically worn into the heads top surface. (inspect with a torch to see for yourself).
New heads are rarely available, though I have an impressive collection of spare mechanisms that I can rob for spares…see pic..