Nakamichi 700II

Upated Nakamichi 700 (1973) with discrete refinements and a fairly similar look.

The updates are located in the transport, the heads, the "touch command" transport pads and phase-compensation circuitry added to the playback amplifier.

The playback head's design and material were refined enough to be named Super Head : nickel + niobium + tantalum (Crystalloy) with 0,9µ gap. The contour was reshaped so that low wavelengths approaching the physical dimension of the head wouldn't cause "alternating cancellations and reinforcements".
(The original 700 playback head was made of special Hi-Mu hard permalloy core with thin titanium lamination which allowed a 0,7µ gap.)

Crystal ferrite was chosen for the record head because the material fits well wide gap uses ; to circumvent the high-frequency losses of wide-gap design and extension of magnetic field, special "sophisticated design and low-stress manufacturing" process was adopted.
(The original 700 record head was made of special Hi-Mu ferrite with a 5µ gap.)

- Phase-corrected playback : maintained within 30°, helping dynamic circuits such as Dolby to handle complex signals more accurately.
- Manual record level calibration (EX & SX tapes)
- High-output headphone amp
- Low modulation noise through slightly redesigned tape transport
- Optical-Sensing DC motor with 120 pulses per rotation allowing speed control by altering the motors voltage.


The rest of the 700 II is equivalent to the original 700 :
- closed-loop dual capstan [belt-driven] with staggered flywheels
- induction reel hubs motor
- pulse-controlled DC motor
- user-adjustable record head azimuth
- plug-in electronic cards
- Dolby and 19Khz MPX filters
- Peak limiter
- 400Hz tone generator
- pneumatically damped cassette & heads movements
- three MIC inputs (L / C / R)
- tape/source monitoring switch
- Peak VU meters with 300ms rise / 1,5s decay
- RM-10 Wired remote control.


The 700 II is probably Nakamichi's most elegantly designed machine (it isn't all-black), a very impressive monster of worthwile engineering.

I had one at home for a while and really had a hard time letting it go : it works well and is just truly magnificent.