August 23, 2024
#494
Gentle reader,
My interest in good sounding music began in 1975 when I had a new friend in the neighborhood. He took me up to his room to show me his stereo. The first thing to assault my eyes were his huge homemade speakers with 18" woofers. He put Pure Prairie League's Two Lane Highway on his turntable and the sound of that title cut! OMG! I could not believe music could sound so amazing! This was still the time where most of us were listening to AM radio. So, to hear a record sound like, well, live music, was a wonderful revelation to me. I went home and looked at my plastic folding suitcase "stereo" and whimpered. Thus began my journey to better sound...
Thanks to thrift stores and much later, the Internet, especially eBay, I have been able to buy hundreds of components and speakers in the last 49 years for bargain prices. If you are already one of my readers, (thank you!) then you have read about some of those pieces over the years I have been writing The Robb Collections.
Here is my latest find, just last week: The Robb Collections: Who Listens to the Radio Anymore? Well, this Budget Audiophile Does and The BOSE WAVE/PC Radio Just Blew My Mind!
"So," I thought, "why not go to the same two thrift stores as last time and see what has shown up?" The first one, the local Goodwill, did not have much, then I spotted an RCA Double CD recorder. I already have a TDK model, but this one has a bunch of things the TDK does not. I grabbed two CDs, loaded both trays. Both played fine. $20.99? Into the cart it went.
Off to Savers. At first, nothing grabbed my eye. Then, a glance over to the TV's area. "What the hell? Is that a Nakamichi cassette deck? For $6.99!!!" It was obvious someone had beat me to it, since it was still plugged in to the outlet. Also plugged in to it were the previous owner's two pairs of RCA cables. It had a cassette tape still inside, so I played with the controls. It fast forwarded and rewound fine, but pushing play, only the left capstan turned. "Hmm." I pressed stop and carefully pulled out the tape. Sure enough, a loop of tape (not mangled like the old days!) was hanging out. I rolled it back in and tried again. After fast winding and rewinding the tape, sure enough, it started to play!
I could not get that deck paid for and out to the car fast enough! I got home and did some research on it.
"The Nakamichi 480 is a stereo cassette deck with Dolby B noise reduction, it was introduced by Nakamichi in 1979 with a list price of USD $495 and discontinued 3 years later in 1982."
That was the lead in to an article about this particular Nakamichi 480 cassette deck. (Link Below) The price of $495 in 1979 amounts to almost $2,300 in 2024 dollars! My previous two Nakamichi finds were back in the halcyon days when folks were either dying or deciding they did not need that big, fancy, stereo anymore. First was a CD-4 which I kept for a while then passed on. Next was a CDC-200 five disc CD changer which retailed for $1,200 in 1998. I bought it for $12 fifteen years ago! It has served me flawlessly ever since.
With so much of the world's products now being made in China and most of the electronics, it's nice to find that Japan's many fine electronics companies really wanted to provide excellent quality, long lasting, components and speakers. Anyway, enough about that, back to this awesome cassette deck.
Just look at the size and complexity of that PCB! Odd that they mounted it components side down. I'm sure they had their reasons.
I had looked for replacement belts for this tape deck and found a couple of sellers on eBay with all the belts and idler "tire" for reasonable prices. Since it is 45 years old, I took a close look at the belts and other moving parts. All are in remarkable condition! How many melted turntable belts have you found? Nothing like that here.
I carefully used a cotton swab wet with 91% isopropyl alcohol and cleaned the idler wheel/tire and the two devices it rubs against.
What I have found is this: The first time press of PLAY results in nothing moving. I pop out the tape, take a look at the tape, no loop! I wind it forward with my finger, put it back in, press play it play it does! In fact, I have been listening to it the entire time I'm writing this. I'm on side two of Earl Klugh's MOVE tape.
Nancy and I were only buying cassettes when we met thirty years ago. We each had 100 capacity wooden tape racks. When we got married, we went through the tapes, choosing ones to keep. The first tape I used today to test the deck was her Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble's Couldn't Stand The Weather. I had on my KOSS Port Pro Black headphones plugged right into the deck. I had not ever listened to any of Stevie Ray's music before. I discovered two things: I LIKE his music and WOW! I have never heard a cassette sound so GOOD! So, this is a keeper. But, that led me to another revelation, I no longer have ANY of the vintage Yamaha components. A before photo:
The CD player was the first to go. I replaced all the belts, but it sometimes still refused to open the tray. Next was the integrated amp. One day, no left channel. Then, I was frustrated with the tuner. I'd previously called it "the best tuner I've ever had." but it had become quite hissy sounding. Then I remembered HD Radio. I was an early adopter of it. I found a nearly mint Sangean HD Radio component tuner on eBay for $99 with the remote and manual. I had previously bought a second OPPO DV-980H universal player to replace said malfunctioning Yamaha CD player. Now, the OPPO's tray doesn't always want to open or completely close. The 2024 picture:
If you look closely (click or tap on any photo and it will open larger) you will see the cassette deck was playing at the time I made the image, the VU needles are in the middle. The aforementioned RCA CD recorder is also in the stack.
The ins and outs of the stack. The 2024 Yamaha A-S301 integrated amplifier has two digital inputs: optical and coaxial. So, I plugged one into the OPPO just to compare the sound. I usually chose the OPPO's DAC rather than the Yamaha's. But, really, I can hear no difference in the sound.
I might as well show you the twenty-one dollar RCA CDRW121 CD recorder I found at Goodwill today. It was very dirty, but it cleaned up pretty well. I don't know when it was made. Surely, a few years ago.
The left tray (seen after taking off the cover) is a typical single disc tray. The CDR tray looks like it should be in a desktop PC.
I put a blank Audio CDR disc in the right tray and it showed BLANK DISC. Then, I put our one CD-single in Katharine McPhee's Somewhere Over The Rainbow in the left tray and did a fast copy. It was quick and I finalized it. Then, with headphones in pressed play on both, switching back and forth. Perfect sound.
This this has two microphone inputs and can add all kinds of special effects to your recording. Thanks to the Internet, I found and printed out manuals for both components and have some learning to do.
Well, Eric Marienthal' s VOICES OF THE HEART just finished side two. Yep, this Nakamichi 480 cassette deck may be up to 45 years old, but it still wants what's it's engineers and assemblers wanted it to do: Provide many years of fine music reproduction.
Links to related articles:
Nakamichi 480 2 Head Cassette Deck | CassetteDeck.org
Nakamichi 480 Review - VintageSonics
Cassette tapes have made a comeback thanks to the Guardians of the Galaxy film but only one Chinese company is making cassette transport mechanisms. And they are crappy. If you want to listen to cassette tapes, start look for vintage Japanese players.
As always, thank you for taking the time to read this rather lengthy article. Feel free to leave a comment below or on Facebook.
Scott Robb
August 23, 2024
#494
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