Nakamichi CR1

[ambytanu]

Finally laid my hands on the nakamichi cr1.thanks a lot to Rahul from mysore who let me audition the deck for a long time and also explained to me all mechanisms and controls.thanks a lot rahul,it was a great experience.hope to get more naks from you in the future.

 

[reubensm]

congrats and welcome to the exclusive Nakamichi cassette deck fold. The CR-1 is a good deck and you'll have a lot of enjoyable listening with it. Just ensure that you feed it with very good or new cassettes and it will serve you well for a very long time.

 

[ambytanu]

Thanks.i listen only to r d burman and it's very difficult to source new ones but I have preserved my tapes well so fingers crossed

 

[James Hamzah]

A new perspective on my CR1 after being put to a minor shame by my newly acquired BX300.

Granted it is somewhat in my opinion not as fluid sounding and killer bass as my BX300 but recently to give the BX some rest (awaiting new belts)I found out by just slightly increasing the volume my sub REL sub brings a new extra life to music from the CR1.

It is actually quite fantastic that way, by helping out the bottom end a bit brings a whole new character to the sound. I can play it loud which I couldn't before, like right now as I write this. I dare say it acquired much needed warmth, extra depth and sound staging. Treble is now smooth and crystal clear. and instruments have real body. And vocals...Toni Braxton on vocals sound alive and forward of the band. G's sexaphone is sooo clear and floats ever so sweetly exactly in the center. Music fills the room from in front of me and like they are not coming from the speakers themselves.

REL sub is just the small Q50 as that's all I need in a small 10 x 20 ft room to give my Spendor SP1/2 speakers a little bottom end help. Maybe my Jadis Defy 30 being a valve amp also helps to give some welcomed warmth to the CR1 I dunno.

Anyway instead of being sidelined recently and up for sale I am seriously thinking of keeping this little baby! BOTL and latter gen Nak yes but it CAN sound good with some help!

Actually I cheated a bit....I fitted the CR1 with a head meant for the BX125. Therefore it now uses the older RP-2D instead of the RP-2G which comes with all CR1/CR2.

Cheers

 

[Technics_Fan]

CR-1 is simple yet great 2 header for playback..no bells and whistles like some of the highend Naks but still is able to deliver a very presentable frequency response...

You can look at upgrading the Line Amp section's op amp ...the stock uses a JRC 4556D which is not that great...A NE5532 or a OPA2227 with a 100Nf film cap between the supply pins (4 and 8) will certainly help the CR-1 to a certain level..

BX300 is obviously a more superior unit with dual capstan asymmetrical diffused resonance capstans pressure pad lifter...But still some of the other Naks with classic transport (transport made by Nakamichi and not Sankyo) have deeper bass response and sound more warmer...A 680ZX or LX5 or ZX7 will put the BX-300 to shame in the bass department....

 

[reubensm]

After having heard a few of the Naks, in my opinion, there is very little between them in terms of performance. The 2 headers are equally competent when compared to the 3-headers. A lot of what you would ultimately hear depends greatly on what you play in it. For example, a recording of Pink Floyd's "The Wall" done on a Nak Dragon on ordinary tape, plays very well on my DR3 but sounded horrible when I listened to it on a Nak 1000

 

[Technics_Fan]

After having heard a few of the Naks, in my opinion, there is very little between them in terms of performance. The 2 headers are equally competent when compared to the 3-headers. A lot of what you would ultimately hear depends greatly on what you play in it.

I greatly respect your view..but i kinda disagree with the general notion that 2 header can match to the performance of three header for the following reasons...

1.) The head gap profile....The head gap on a two header had to be built for both playback and record...This present a trade off in the head design of record / playback head...This is not the case in a discrete head deck..I do agree the playback on some the the older Naks like 480 , 580 two head dual capstan asymmetrical diffused resonance capstan can come very close to the performance of the three headers...but recording is not nearly as good as a three head deck...

The tape monitoring on a three head deck is a mere feature / convenience.. I think the real reason they were built as three head is to ensure peak performance during both record and playback. This is why some of the earlier 3 head naks were built without the monitor feature..(481,581,660ZX,670ZX)

2.) Dual capstan / pressure pad lifter... Though this again is not really something that is exclusive to 3 head deck...some of the classic models like (480,480Z,580,580Z) are dual capstan with pressure pad lifter and sound brilliant...The newer generation of generally are single capstan with no pressure pad lifter... As per my understanding the pressure pad lifter server two purpose...
a.) First the scrape flutter that occurs due to the pressure pad rubbing against the moving tape on top of the head is completely eliminated...
b.) Heads longevity.. This ensure that the heads with the pressure pad lifter have superior longevity as the tape is held against the playback head just with intra capstan tension....This the reason why the two head single capstan heads usually wear out prematurely...

3.) Quality / Material of heads....It is my understanding that the playback heads on all classic transport 2 header / 3 headers came out of the Nakamichi factory line...This is not the case for the newer single capstan two heads on the CR series BX-series DR Series...The general perception is that these were OEM'ed by ALPs...but again there is not proof for this.. more of hearsay...

The playback heads on all classic transport 2 header / 3 headers were made out of sendust...there may be few exceptions...But the two head single capstan nak were mostly crystal Permalloy....

For example, a recording of Pink Floyd's "The Wall" done on a Nak Dragon on ordinary tape, plays very well on my DR3 but sounded horrible when I listened to it on a Nak 1000

This looks to me as if the 1000 was not calibrated to the factory specs...
Also could be partly attributed to a IEC 1981 Prague eq standard change...

To do a fair comparison all units have to be align to factory specs with a information terminals m-300 gauge and a set of reference tapes (speed,track,w&f,azimuth,level,freq response,Dolby, back tension )...
Also most of the classic naks suffer (this is not true for 1000) from orange cap disease (the orange colored polypropylene caps go bad) and these the have to be recapped to get the best performance out of a classic nak...

Again just to re iterate i am no expert in naks...this purely based on my experience on 8 naks that I am proud to own ,had the pleasure of recapping it and re-calibrating it ..and also may be couple dozen more that i have auditioned in various places and also contemplating the views on various forums...

 

[reubensm]

Well, I am not so technical but just report on what I hear. Your are spot on with regard to the fact taht it is not technically possible to review a system without ideal test conditions and the rest of the stable, being constant. And yes, the 2-header can still sound great. That the reason why I moved to the DR3.

 

[James Hamzah]

Granted, a CR1 will never sound as good as a 3 header Nak. Botl with cheaper electronics. But even a cheap Nak is not so cheap back then as Nakamichi did not compromise on quality.
Having said that I've heard an RX303, a two header. Double capstan, pressure pad lifter. Superb sound. Even more expensive than a BX 300 3 header.

 

[kamal5878]

Finally laid my hands on the nakamichi cr1.thanks a lot to Rahul from mysore who let me audition the deck for a long time and also explained to me all mechanisms and controls.thanks a lot rahul,it was a great experience.hope to get more naks from you in the future.

For how much price I can buy a used cr 1?

 

[naanmic]

For how much price I can buy a used cr 1?

Full working order for 200-250$