Car Cassette Receivers

Nakamichi is a historic high end audio audio company most famous for its innovative and very high quality cassette decks. It is now part of the Grande Group, a Singapore-based conglomerate. more...

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Nakamichi was founded in 1948, manufacturing portable radios, tone arms, speakers, and communications equipment. In 1972, Nakamichi launched its first Nakamichi-brand products, home audio gear that included the world's first three-head cassette deck. In 1999, the Nakamichi-brand SoundSpace audio and home theater audio systems was introduced, all design-oriented products that could be hung on a wall. Nakamichi also sells a line of higher-quality mini systems, to a market similar to that sought by Bang & Olufsen, as well as selling automotive stereo products and home theater items.

Background

Nakamichi is a Japanese manufacturer founded by Etsuro Nakamichi (affectionally known as "the Dragon") and later headed by his sons, Ted and Niro. The company originally was set up to act as a manufacturer of electric household products but quickly became known as a developer and later manufacturer of quality audio products. Their cassette decks were particularly well known, but in fact the company also made some spectacular other products such as the innovative record players and DAT recorders, and the company managed to garner an impressive level of brand loyalty.

In 1973 Nakamichi created stereo cassette decks with such high quality that eventually made reel-to-reel tape recorders obsolete for consumers. The Nakamichi 1000 and 700 were regarded as two of the finest cassette recorders made in the mid-1970s. They had three heads, dual capstan drive that reduced wow and flutter to new low levels, and Dolby-B noise reduction to improve the signal to noise ratio. The feature that really set them apart was the adjustable record head azimuth and Dolby calibration that could be optimized for each cassette tape. Many audiophiles aspired to but could not afford a Nakamichi 1000 or 700 (whose model number was derived from the list price), so Nakamichi came out with more economical two-head models such as the Nakamichi 500 and the silver wedge-shaped 600.

Nakamichi pushed live recording with their Nakamichi 550, a portable cassette recorder that had three microphone inputs: one for left channel, one for right channel, and one for a center blend channel. This recorder could run from batteries or AC and was used to make very high quality recordings in the field. All of these products were known for top-notch engineering and sound quality.

In the late 1970s Nakamichi updated their machines with the Nakamichi 1000 II, the 700 II, and other midrange and low-end models, but overall they became more complex and less reliable, and prices were raised as well. They branched out into other audio components such as amplifiers and eventually speakers, but these products were never as highly regarded by the audio community as their cassette decks were.

Read more at Wikipedia.org