Two weeks later, it arrived on my doorstep, packed way better than it did when it left the Nakamichi factory. Hermann sent me a note when the Dragon arrived, and since I was buried with my duties here, told him not to rush the job. It’s a lot like buying a vintage Porsche 356 you’re going to have to spend the money one way or another if you want it to run right. If you aren’t as adventuresome as I am, look for a deck on Audiogon that has been recently serviced by Hermann, and make sure they have all the paperwork. If your heart is set on a Dragon, plan on spending $1,200 – $1,600 by the time you are done. But I’ve heard of people spending more-than twice this much on a deck that still needed a going over. As it turned out, I had bought pretty much a basket-case deck the record and play heads needed repair as well as most of the transport assembly. Hermann’s service came to just under $600 and required six hours of his labor and about $40 worth of parts. They almost all need repair anyway, so don’t pay a premium price for a used Dragon.” Fortunately, the person from whom I purchased the deck on eBay for $410 was willing to ship it straight to Hermann, after a little convincing that I wasn’t trying to pull an eBay scam on him. Hermann was very helpful on the phone and gave me perhaps the best tip of all: “Pick one up that doesn’t work. A life-long Nakamichi technician who also owned a few high-end retail stores, he now concentrates on Nakamichi and Krell repair. Thanks to a suggestion from a friend, I found Willy Hermann of Willy Hermann Services. Fortunately, plenty of parts decks remain for sale on the internet, and there are a few acknowledged masters who keep the Nakamichi flame burning brightly. With Nakamichi decks, there are no new parts being produced because the company disappeared into bankruptcy in 2002 after being acquired by a Chinese firm. These days, the toughest part of keeping any tape machine running smoothly (or any piece of vintage gear for that matter) is finding a good tech. I always wanted a Dragon, but its spell eluded me until just recently. Either way, with a list price of $2,499 in 1982, this was truly a high-end machine. Soon after its introduction, the Compact Disc would arrive on the scene and shortly thereafter become the ubiquitous format of choice. This resulted in a Nakamichi deck that could play back tapes recorded on other manufacturers’ machines as well as doing a great job with pre-recorded tapes.Īlas, the Dragon ceased to be at the end of the analog age. While some other Nakamichi models used an adjustable record azimuth, the Dragon concentrated on the playback domain. A three-head deck with discrete heads for recording, playback and erase, it used Nakamichi’s NAAC auto azimuth correction to optimize playback azimuth on any tape played. With an 11-year production run that ended in 1993, the Nakamichi Dragon epitomized cassette-deck technology, and to many enthusiasts, it was considered the Holy Grail of what could be accomplished at 1 7/8 i.p.s.
0 kommentar(er)
