- Joined
- May 1, 2013
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- 7,163
- Location
- Australia
- Tagline
- Those who enter the man cave will get WOPLed
Finally decided to purchase a fully serviced/restored deck, so I contacted Perry from TH who has an excellent reputation working on these machines. Requesting the best performing BX-300 that he had in his stock, either 110 or 230 volt model, as I have a step down transformer handy. He found one that had no head wear detectable during testing, near mint face plate, hardly a mark on the unit at all. The troublesome reel motor had been replaced with a new one, also bias pot. The unit is a gear idler drive instead of idler tyre and has a fairly high serial number. 3 Motor, Direct drive, Dual Capstan and pressure pad lifter are some of the mechanical features.
I'm very happy with the cosmetics and performance of this unit. Perry sure knows these machines well and sent me frequency response plots for 3 different tapes:
TDK D:
TDK SA:
Sony Metal XR60:
Wow and Flutter is well within spec, tested by Perry using a commercial test tape:
To ensure the deck survived the trip to australia, I also did a wow/flutter test on it upon arrival:
Now you will notice that the test I did has a slightly better result. The reason for this is that I purchased a test tape from Perry, and he recorded the 3khz portion of the tape in his Nakamichi Dragon, which has lower wow and flutter than commercial machines that create test tapes. Please note that I had a range set of 0.1% instead of the 0.5% that Perry set on the gauge, this does not affect the result, just the needle meter position.
In order to internally calibrate and optimize the machine, Perry asked me what tapes were to be used for recording. I also sent him pics of them so he could identify what generation each tape was. I requested TDK to be optimized all the way from D to SA-X, Fuji DR-II Chromes, and Sony Metal XR's. Big thanks to Steven (Orange) for helping me replenish my blank tape stock.
I mentioned TDK SA-X and HX-S to Perry as some of the tapes I would use, and he found a way to make them work just as well with both dolby nr as with TDK SA, this meant moving the default bias position (for chromes) to 9 oclock on the dial, this required internal adjustment. That way I had enough travel to go near fully clockwise (for flat response) on the external bias dial for SA-X and HX-S, as those are both a hot tape. Type II was the only challenge here due to my tape selections. For Ferric and Metal tapes the bias dial is in the neutral position.
Although this deck does not have level calibration, only bias adjustment, Perry managed to dial it in with great precision. All the tapes I mentioned work flawlessly with Dolby, although I have not tried Fuji DR-II's with Dolby C yet. Perry explained to me that Dolby C is very sensitive to level calibration, and the DR-II's are 2db less sensitive than TDK SA's. I don't have any desire to use Dolby C with these DR-II's so that isn't a problem at all. Dolby B has been tested with these tapes though and works great. When recording onto DR-II's of course the level displayed when monitoring the source is approx 2db more than the tape monitoring itself, I don't mind doing a quick test recording in this case to get them set perfectly. As for using different brand metal tapes (other than sony) this is possible and they should track just as well as an XR. I did try recording onto a chrome tape that Steven sent me, it turned out great, I suspect its a 747 or 751 type from the National Audio Company.
I have started a collection of recordings that will only be used in the Nak BX-300 or the other Nak 480 deck. The reason for this is to keep the tapes in the best possible condition. The very stable transport system and pressure pad lifter of Naks increase tape and head life considerably. Many of my older tapes have been used in the car heavily, although they still sound fantastic with no drop outs. 4 track auto reverse heads in car decks are well known to be a bit harder on tapes.
Tapes tested so far for recording: TDK SA90/HX-S90 (Chrome) D/AD (Ferric), Maxell XL-II (Epitaxial), Sony Metal XR60, Sony UX (Chrome), Fuji DR-II, Fuji Z (Chrome). Every single one has turned out well for quality.
I am extremely happy with the performance of this deck, and never thought Cassette could sound this good. There are many improvements over my previous recording deck (JVC TD-V661). The main ones being fidelity, dynamic range and transport stability. The JVC Served me well, many many hours on that deck, but it can't hold a candle to the Nak. I don't miss HXPro at all and have lowered my recording levels to a more conservative level. +1db for Ferric, +2db for Chrome and +4-5db for Metal types. I certainly would recommend Perry to anyone looking for a nicely serviced/restored Nak. His prices are very reasonable, communication great, and packaging of the deck was very safe for transport.
I'm very happy with the cosmetics and performance of this unit. Perry sure knows these machines well and sent me frequency response plots for 3 different tapes:
TDK D:
TDK SA:
Sony Metal XR60:
Wow and Flutter is well within spec, tested by Perry using a commercial test tape:
To ensure the deck survived the trip to australia, I also did a wow/flutter test on it upon arrival:
Now you will notice that the test I did has a slightly better result. The reason for this is that I purchased a test tape from Perry, and he recorded the 3khz portion of the tape in his Nakamichi Dragon, which has lower wow and flutter than commercial machines that create test tapes. Please note that I had a range set of 0.1% instead of the 0.5% that Perry set on the gauge, this does not affect the result, just the needle meter position.
In order to internally calibrate and optimize the machine, Perry asked me what tapes were to be used for recording. I also sent him pics of them so he could identify what generation each tape was. I requested TDK to be optimized all the way from D to SA-X, Fuji DR-II Chromes, and Sony Metal XR's. Big thanks to Steven (Orange) for helping me replenish my blank tape stock.
I mentioned TDK SA-X and HX-S to Perry as some of the tapes I would use, and he found a way to make them work just as well with both dolby nr as with TDK SA, this meant moving the default bias position (for chromes) to 9 oclock on the dial, this required internal adjustment. That way I had enough travel to go near fully clockwise (for flat response) on the external bias dial for SA-X and HX-S, as those are both a hot tape. Type II was the only challenge here due to my tape selections. For Ferric and Metal tapes the bias dial is in the neutral position.
Although this deck does not have level calibration, only bias adjustment, Perry managed to dial it in with great precision. All the tapes I mentioned work flawlessly with Dolby, although I have not tried Fuji DR-II's with Dolby C yet. Perry explained to me that Dolby C is very sensitive to level calibration, and the DR-II's are 2db less sensitive than TDK SA's. I don't have any desire to use Dolby C with these DR-II's so that isn't a problem at all. Dolby B has been tested with these tapes though and works great. When recording onto DR-II's of course the level displayed when monitoring the source is approx 2db more than the tape monitoring itself, I don't mind doing a quick test recording in this case to get them set perfectly. As for using different brand metal tapes (other than sony) this is possible and they should track just as well as an XR. I did try recording onto a chrome tape that Steven sent me, it turned out great, I suspect its a 747 or 751 type from the National Audio Company.
I have started a collection of recordings that will only be used in the Nak BX-300 or the other Nak 480 deck. The reason for this is to keep the tapes in the best possible condition. The very stable transport system and pressure pad lifter of Naks increase tape and head life considerably. Many of my older tapes have been used in the car heavily, although they still sound fantastic with no drop outs. 4 track auto reverse heads in car decks are well known to be a bit harder on tapes.
Tapes tested so far for recording: TDK SA90/HX-S90 (Chrome) D/AD (Ferric), Maxell XL-II (Epitaxial), Sony Metal XR60, Sony UX (Chrome), Fuji DR-II, Fuji Z (Chrome). Every single one has turned out well for quality.
I am extremely happy with the performance of this deck, and never thought Cassette could sound this good. There are many improvements over my previous recording deck (JVC TD-V661). The main ones being fidelity, dynamic range and transport stability. The JVC Served me well, many many hours on that deck, but it can't hold a candle to the Nak. I don't miss HXPro at all and have lowered my recording levels to a more conservative level. +1db for Ferric, +2db for Chrome and +4-5db for Metal types. I certainly would recommend Perry to anyone looking for a nicely serviced/restored Nak. His prices are very reasonable, communication great, and packaging of the deck was very safe for transport.
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