091231 – The deck arrived this morning. Today is 31st Dec. 2009. Before I get ready for the new year, I need to give this deck a try.
Looks like it fires up, and all lights work. When I opened the cassette well, I started to see there were some parts missing 🙁
I did not attempt to play a tape, as it would have been damaged.
100102 – Yesterday I spent most of the day working on the deck’s mech. It had some missing adjusters, and it was severely abused. Thankfully I had some spares, a head base plate, and plastic screws. I then went through the standard mech. cleaning and lubrication. Enjoy the pictures!
100103 – I am done with the transport. Finished with the azimuth belt, and grease. I finally fitted new rollers and guides, and went through final adjustments, like head tilt, guide height, etc. The transport really looks like new now. Still a lot of things to do with the electronics, some lamps are gone in the front panel, but I’ll work them out later.
100104 – It’s been about 30h work by now. I am going through most of the electronic calibration, but the deck is now performing really well. Just uploaded a video of the performance through the audio spectrum and distortion (really low <0.6%). Also another video showing the amazing freq. respense of a TDK MA metal cassette, of up to 26KHz at -3dB!
100105 – No new pics or videos today. I have finished electronic calibration, which is really very time-consuming on this deck, including bias currents, all tone levels – 400, 2.4K, 7.2K and 20K, DAC offset, reference values, etc. The deck is as good or better than new now. I am thinking of doing a direct spec comparison with another deck – probably a CR7. I need to do a small setup for the purpose, but definitively will be worth the time, because there’s been so much hype about it for years in the Nakamichi Cassette Deck world. Stay tuned!
100106 – I have put up a lab setup for a side-by-side deck comparison. The eternal question. Will a 1000ZXL beat a CR7?
100113 – I was getting a little tired of the step-down transformer for my 120V unit. We have designed and manufactured a direct replacement! Scroll down, and see the video!
100115 – How low can you go? Will the 1000ZXL reach 20Hz? 19Hz? 18Hz? Watch the latest video and find out yourself!
