Al Klappenberger Posted February 9, 2004 Author Share Posted February 9, 2004 Garymd, Ok.. The hammer is ready and waiting in the wings but it can wait a while! AL K. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JCturboT Posted February 9, 2004 Share Posted February 9, 2004 ---------------- On 2/8/2004 4:37:35 PM kdepot wrote: I've had good service performed by Electronic Service Labs (www.eslabs.com). They repaired a Nak 682zx which I bought over ebay and did a fantastic job. It wasn't cheap but it was well done and the machine works great now. ---------------- I would have to agree with Kdepot on Electronic Sound Lab down in Wethersfield Connecticut. I recent made the 200 mile round trip to see Jeff Galin about the repair of my Brothers Nakamichi CR-7A deck and Jeff was a a real audio nut-we talked about everything from 2 channel-to tube amplifiers-to Ham radio (my Brothers hobby). When I made mention of my Yamaha 2000 series components along with my Klipschorns it really piqued his interest.He wanted to know my opinion of my MX-2000 series amp VS my Yamaha MX-85. I thought he was actually just making conversation till he went in his office and came back with a service manual on my MX-2000. It's nice to know there are actually guys like this still out there with a real love of the hobby,not just looking for a quick buck. If anyone needs to contact Jeff about repair work he can be reached at www.eslabs.com He is a factory recommended tech for not only Nakamichi but Yamaha,Sony,Panasonic as well as several other manufactures. Jeff Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D-MAN Posted February 9, 2004 Share Posted February 9, 2004 Al, I am with you guy. Remember when the likes of Kenwood, Harmon-Kardon, Marantz and most of all of the "good" stuff from way back used to be American? Now all of it is mostly cheap plastic junk from Japan. In general AMERICAN, ENGLISH, and CANADIAN are the only brands of audio gear that I would recommend to anyone now, and that even SIGHT UNSEEN and UNHEARD. It's a safe bet. DM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Al Klappenberger Posted February 10, 2004 Author Share Posted February 10, 2004 JCturboT, Thanks for the tip. I'm sure they can get the schematic, the question will be, will they sell me a copy! I plan to contact them. Al K. P.S. I am not going to acknowlege on this forum where I finally get a schematic. This could get somebody in trouble with the itiots at Nacamichi headquarters who I hope are reading this. I don't want to get a good guy in trouble! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garymd Posted February 10, 2004 Share Posted February 10, 2004 Al, Sorry but they're not an authorized Nak service center. They did recommend you try Electronic Service Labs. They're in Connecticut and they're # is (860) 529-3700. Tell them you're a repair facility or something and maybe you'll have some luck. Good luck! - Gary Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Al Klappenberger Posted February 12, 2004 Author Share Posted February 12, 2004 Guys, UPDATE... I have tried half a dozen places to get the tech manual on this thing. Nobody has it! To spite this I have found the reason the thing would not switch on using some intuition. Indeed the power relay was not pulling in. The circuit board was cracked right across the circuitry that controls the relay. The circuit board material Nakamichi uses is the cheapst junk they could find. It's not much better than pasteboard! JUNK! The picture shows before and after the broken circuit board traces were jumped with magnet wire. The left picture is with the board lit from the opposite side with a flashlight. It least it will not play FM through the headphones! On to the dead center channel! Al K. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RFinco Posted February 12, 2004 Share Posted February 12, 2004 this is a sad thing. I will say this though: Nakamichi car CD players are the BEST HANDS DOWN IN THE WORLD. no one builds a audiophile grade deck like Nak decks--no one. check out their models--they are supurb in every way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BackBurner Posted February 12, 2004 Share Posted February 12, 2004 I've got a friend with pa-5 pa-7 ca-5 ( he use to have a dragon ) plus one of there multi stack cd players. This guy loves to spend money, problem #1 his cd player crapped out last month and can't find a sole to fix it ? I told him to just buy something new and forget about the nak player. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Klipschfoot Posted February 12, 2004 Share Posted February 12, 2004 Al. Cut your losses. Throw the POS away and find something else. From the pics, it looks like a time waster. I have an old Nak AV500 with a Technics AC-3 outboard processor and I have no problems at at all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Al Klappenberger Posted February 12, 2004 Author Share Posted February 12, 2004 Klipschfoot, I already have gotten something else! A NAD T761. I just got it today. All I want to do now is fix the AV-8 and unload it for what I got in it! AL K. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jazzmansound Posted February 13, 2004 Share Posted February 13, 2004 hay,s guy,s the nak. stuff from the mid, 80,s still is some of the best gear made even today. i have the drangon rack system ,that i would never sell. i been buying the parts to this system for more then 15 years. not to many can say i have the drangon system . i still like to have two tx-1000,s ..so if anyone can help me find a tx-1000 please email me . jazzmansound Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EJH Posted February 14, 2004 Share Posted February 14, 2004 Not to set fire to this thread, but... I was in the gym today and saw an Audiopile magazine. Now normally I don't read at the gym but today I did. Anyway, I found a write up on a $2,000 1 meter audio cable and after seeing Al's cracked pcb it got me to think out loud. Why are people willing to pay so much for cable when inside the best equipment is inexpensive thin copper traces on single layer fiberglass boards and cheap solder blobs? No gold plating or fancy wires on the inside. Just makes me go hmmm. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Al Klappenberger Posted February 14, 2004 Author Share Posted February 14, 2004 FIBERGLASS board! I wish it was fiberglass! If it was, it would not have cracked. That board was made of some kind of phenolic paste material. Al K. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jt1stcav Posted February 14, 2004 Share Posted February 14, 2004 Nakamichi's glory days are well over, seeing now that all they manufacture are these cheesey flat panel wall units and such. I own a '97 Philippine made DR-1 three-head cassette deck that still operates flawlessly, but sadly I'm quite aware of their poor reliability record, even with their older models that were still built in Japan. Back in '79, my dad owned two $1500 Nakamichi 680ZX decks that both experienced transport failure (so did I with my two-head BX-125). Although I lucked out when owning the BX-1 and later the DR-2, I had some reoccuring calibration problems with my $1800 '83 Nakamichi DRAGON after it too was damaged from a power spike and then repaired. I've heard both good and bad things about Nakamichi's MusicBank CD changer system, and if I'm not mistaken, McIntosh Labs has used Nakamichi's system on at least one of their CD players. But the cons outweighed the pros, so I never invested in one. And imagine the horror when I discovered several cheap, flimsy, plastic AV receivers at Best Buy a few years ago with the Nakamichi logo on them...hell, the cheap RCA brand receivers at RadioShack looked ten times better! It's a shame about all the problems you've had with your Nakamichi receiver, along with the frustration of not being able to obtain a simple schematic diagram from them or their service centers. What was a venerable name in high-end audiophile components is now a laughing joke IMO... ...but nobody's laughing anymore! Good luck with the NAD. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Al Klappenberger Posted February 15, 2004 Author Share Posted February 15, 2004 jt1stcav, I wasn't aware McIntosh had used Nakamichi parts. The problem has been service and I expect Mc will not let it's users down like Nak has. BTW.. I've learned that Nakamichi was bought out by a Chinese company. Maybe that explains a few things! I got the NAD receiver a few days ago and have been using it since. I haven't opened it up to look inside but looking through the vent holes a big cast aluminum heat sink with tapered fins can be seen. The heat sink on the Nak is just cheat tin plates. The only thing I don't like about the NAD is the universsal remote control that came with it. It was not the one described in the manual. It turns out that the remote that runs my Dish Network receiver operates enough functions of the NAD to use it instead. It would NOT run the Nak. I like that Dish Network remote better anyhow! AL K. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jt1stcav Posted February 15, 2004 Share Posted February 15, 2004 Al, I had no idea that Nakamichi was bought out by a Chinese firm. It's a shame if that's the reason why Nakamichi went on a downward slide because of its new ownership. McIntosh was under Clarion (car audio) for a few years, and now by D&M Holdings of Tokyo (also own Denon and Marantz, etc.), and Macs are still high-quality audio components built in Binghampton, NY, and are highly regarded as one of the best in the world! I remember Nakamichi in their glory days ('70s through the '80s)...their power amps and preamps were built like tanks with sonics that were to die for. Of course their cassette decks were another story, being the world leader in cassette technology, many of their designs of which were world-firsts! You achieved a certain status in life if you owned any Nakamichi component...hell, my dad attracted more audiophile buddies when he bought his first 680ZX tape deck (just like when he bought his Cornwalls), which led to his buddies buying Nakamichi products for their systems, and on and on and on... Alas, I guess all good things must eventually come to a bitter end. With CD technology introduced in '83, cassette deck design and manufacture slowly went on a silent decline, until hardly no one (consumer or professional) uses tape decks anymore today. I'm still a die-hard fan, but I must also confess that I hardly play my tapes anymore, and stopped recording alltogether over a year ago. Even my Panasonic pro-DAT recorder sits idle anymore...it's sad sometimes how what interested you in audio in the first place many years ago has now come to a screeching halt. If my final Nakamichi DR-1 bites the proverbial dust anytime soon, then I guess that'll be the end to my cassette playing days. How sad. I didn't mourn this much when 8-track and quadraphonic became extinct! Thank God turntables and vacuum tubes are still alive and well today! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mighty Favog Posted February 17, 2004 Share Posted February 17, 2004 Al, For the hell of it plugged in the Nak AV-8 into a Google search and it came back with this. Is this what you need (even if you have to order it(?). http://www.icxinyi.com/EN/zlsearch.php Plug in AV-8 for a seach for the diagram and look at the fouth listing from the bottom in .pdf format. It won't let me access it, I guess because I'm not logged in or I'm not a member or something. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skonopa Posted February 17, 2004 Share Posted February 17, 2004 ---------------- On 2/17/2004 2:35:07 PM Tom Blasing wrote: Al, For the hell of it plugged in the Nak AV-8 into a Google search and it came back with this. I this what you need (even if you have to order it(?). http://www.icxinyi.com/EN/zlsearch.php Plug in AV-8 for a seach for the diagram and look at the fouth listing from the bottom in .pdf format. It won't let me access it, I guess because I'm not logged in or I'm not a member or something. ---------------- I checked it out myself just for curiosity (I am no expert in this stuff - I am a software engineer, not an electronics engineeer ). Yeah, you need to register. According thier website: "If you need only the SERVICE MANUAL, The SERVICE MANUAL price is USD10.00. Or You canbecome our data membership,Our Membership fee is USD50.00,Then you can receive 25 Datas what you need. USD100.00 for 60 datas." Once you figure out the crappy english translation, it seems the PDF file is $10 bucks. I have not tried it, but it may be end up being a valuable resource for somebody like Al. K. here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Al Klappenberger Posted February 17, 2004 Author Share Posted February 17, 2004 Tom, VERY INTERESTING! It looks like they have something on the AV-8, but that outfit looks about a fly-by-night as you can get! I got to work myself up to giving them my $10! Something tells me it's a hook to wind up spending a lot more! Al K. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mighty Favog Posted February 17, 2004 Share Posted February 17, 2004 Thanks Al, I was later thinking it may even be printed in Chinese but for all I know numbers and symbols may have the same visual representation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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