is a Japanese consumer electronics brand that originated in Japan and gained a name from the 1970s onwards for innovative and high quality audio cassette decks. Nakamichi is a subsidiary of Chinese holding company Nimble Holdings.
Nakamichi manufactured electronic devices from its founding in 1948 but only sold them under its name from 1972. It is credited with offering the world's first three-head cassette deck. Since 1999, its product range has included design-oriented home cinema audio systems, sound bars, speakers, headphones, mini hi-fi systems, automotive stereo products and video DVD products.
Background
Etsuro Nakamichi founded Nakamichi in 1948 as Nakamichi Research Corporation Ltd (中道研究所株式会社 Nakamichi Kenkyujo Kabushiki Kaisha) in Tokyo, Japan. It specialises in manufacturing portable radios, tonearms, speakers, and communications equipment. It was later headed by the founder's younger brother Niro Nakamichi. The company was originally established as a research and development firm in electronics and optics but later became known as a manufacturer of quality audio products. While its cassette decks were particularly well known, the company is also credited with audio innovations, such as self-centring record players, high-end DAT recorders, and ultra-compact slot-loading CD changers.
In the 1950s, Nakamichi developed one of the first open reel tape recorders in Japan under the Magic Tone brand. In 1957, it developed and made its own magnetic tape heads, as well as launching the Fidela 3-head Open Reel Stereo Tape Deck.
Because of its experience in manufacturing magnetic tape heads and equipment, in 1967 the company started making tape decks for a number of foreign manufacturers including Harman Kardon, KLH, Advent, Fisher, ELAC, Sylvania, Concord, Ampex and Motorola.
From 1973, Nakamichi started to sell high-quality stereo cassette decks that benefited from the mass market's move away from reel-to-reel tape recorders to the cassette format. The Nakamichi 1000 and 700, made in the mid-1970s, had three heads, a dual capstan drive that reduced wow and flutter, and Dolby-B noise reduction to improve the signal-to-noise ratio. The dual capstan drive ensured superior head-to-tape contact, essentially eliminating reliance on the problematic spring pressure pads built into cassette housings. (Later models were fitted with pressure pad lifters that further improved tape travel stability and reduced head wear.) High-end features of these models included adjustable record head azimuth and Dolby calibration. The relatively high retail price of the 1000 and 700 prompted Nakamichi to offer lower-priced two-head models, such as the Nakamichi 500 and the wedge-shaped 600.
The Nakamichi 550 was 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 high quality recordings in the field.
In the late 1970s, Nakamichi updated and broadened its model range, with revised products including the Nakamichi 1000-II, the 700-II, and the lower-end 600-II. Nakamichi branched out into other audio components such as pre-amplifiers, power-amplifiers, tuners, receivers and later speakers.
In the early 1980s, Nakamichi's top-of-the-line cassette deck was the 1000ZXL, retailing at US$3,800, its price only exceeded by the 1000ZXL Limited at US$6,000. The updated 700ZXL sold for US$3,000, but Nakamichi also offered lower-end cassette decks under US$300. This time marked a peak in the market for cassette recorders, before it lost ground to digital recording media such as CD.
Notable Nakamichi products and advances
Three-head cassette decks
Nakamichi was the first to use a three-head recording technique in a cassette deck. Separate tape heads were used for playback, recording, and erase. Previously the playback and recording functions were combined in a single tape head. The three-head mechanism allowed higher quality reproduction as well as the ability to hear a recording in progress - as the tape traveled past the recording head onto the playback head.
The first Nakamichi three-head decks were the 1000 and 700 introduced around 1973. The 1000 and 700 series decks had tape bias settings for normal bias (IEC TYPE I) and high bias (IEC TYPE II). Competitor cassette decks offered Ferri Chrome (IEC TYPE III) whereas Nakamichi chose not to do so. The settings for the normal and high bias were labeled as EX and SX respectively. Nakamichi also sold its own brand of blank cassette tapes.
