I love the sound of my Nakamichi Dragon but sadly most of the pre-recorded tapes I bought on the bay, 100+, since I got it were gone bad, not playable anymore so that’s a risk you have to take when you’re buying tapes today but luckily they are very cheap so getting a bad one doesn’t hurt that much.
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Saved this little fella from the knacker’s yard and tried to revive it. It seems to be in working order with VU meters working but no light and counter belt completely crumbled.
It is nothing fancy but I’d hate it to go to land field.
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A nice find Tony. The Toshiba/Aurex PC-X45D is well worth saving. It’s an excellent machine that performs surprisingly well for a 2 header. Specific Counter belts for this model are hard to find but if you have a selection of thin rubber bands of different lengths you may find one that works. It’s not a performance critical belt so don’t worry too much.I fixed the counter on mine this way - a thin blue rubber band!
The meters are superb - some of best needle type meters I’ve ever seen so worth fixing the illumination.
This model’s bigger brother, the three head PC-X88D is also well worth looking out for. A superb deck.
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Thanks Richard. I had a look at the meters - very easy access - and the lights elements seem fine so could be something else. Surprisingly, it still sounds good in its present state for a deck which is around 40 years old. Agree the 88 is also a great looking deck.
Now, let’s see if I can find some rubber bands.
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A few new finds from this weekend…The tape collection Is slowly growing, although it’s often 2 steps forward, one step back when tapes get chewed up!
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Tony, just for you, here’s a pic of the PC-X45D together with the PC-X88D
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Oh, those are beauties, Richard. Love those VU meters. That 88 looks really cool. Cheers for that.
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Yes, it looks rather good in black with the green meters and green illuminated play button - perfect for an old-school Naim setup. I think the 88 only came in black but the 45/46 could be had in either black or silver. I think they look great in either.
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Hi Richard, are you also the owner of Nakamichi’s ? Is it the ZX9 ? I have the CR-3E & CR-7E and still going strong. How does your Aurex compare to the NAK’s ?
I sold the ZX-9 a couple of years back; I’d just had it serviced by B&W the year before but realised I hadn’t actually used it. Someone local really wanted it, so we did a deal. I still have the LX-3 and BX-300E and last year, suddenly finding myself missing the ZX-9, I bought its predecessor, a lovely 582 from David Hendon of this very forum. The 582 hadn’t been used in a while and turned out to be in need of a full service and re-cap, which I had done last spring. It’s now in tip top shape and sounding better than ever.
The Aurex decks are nice although not quite up to top Nak standard. I’d say that the two-head 45/46 sounds crisp and clear, plays pre-recorded tapes well, and also makes nice recordings - it reminds me somewhat of my first Nak, a BX-1. Perhaps not quite as good, but not far off either. It avoids the rather dull muffled quality of so many decks, especially on pre-recorded tapes. The 88 is better still and offers 3 heads and variable sensitivity and bias tuning. It’s weakness is that it’s still just a single capstan transport - the transport in a dual capstan Nak is streets ahead here.
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I had my CR-7E repaired by B&W when it was just outside its guarantee many years ago (play/rec head transport motor failure batch problem, which was quite common around that time). But i’m sure B&W do not do any repairs or services anymore, but i know there’s a place in London that do. I wonder how many places in England that do repairs/services now ?
Ah yes, IIRC the motors on the Sankyo Naks had a habit of flat-spotting. It happened to me on one of my CR-3Es but then after I put it away for a while and then took it out again a couple of year later it had mirculously cured itself.
A great shame that Paul Wilkins finally hung up his soldering iron on the Nakamichi servicing. When he did my ZX-9 he said he’d never known it to suddenly get so busy and feared that some critical parts in his stock were running low.
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I like the “player” it comes with.
I bought this TDK blank cassette a couple of weeks ago, in preparation for the release of a new tape deck which I’m convinced a leading manufacturer will release this year. 
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Very nice, and rather costly these days. Probably the best cassette tapes ever made.
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Yes, Maxell Metal Vertex are also right up there, along with the TDK MA-XG. Sony Super Metal Master though is arguably best of the lot. For all that, TDK MA-X is probably all the tape anybody could possibly want or need and is a lot less costly.
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