csertich

Has anyone had experience with a Nakamichi CD-400 head unit? Or other Nak products? I've heard the 700 was problematic.

What replacement head units do you folks like out there? Any brand.

I'm thinking of upgrading with a CD-400, Arc Audio Amp and Focal speakers. My car is a Polar Sliver/black '96 993. 18k miles.

I live outside of Memphis and we had some straight line wind problems last Tuesday. My house took a pretty good hit (my car came thru just fine in the garage, thank goodness). But money is an issue now when it comes to my upgrade. I may hook up the amp and speakers to my existing Alpine 7854 and save money on not getting the Nak unit. Altho I WANT it. I'll be buying shingles for my roof instead.

Just another dose of reality for this old man....

chuck

Jim Morton

Chuck:

I installed a Nak CD-700 with Arc Audio PEQ and Butler Amp. The Nak lasted only 5 trips before it ate a CD upon loading. After talking to both Nakamachi and their repair center, the unit will be heading for Ebay once it is repaired. From my experience with Nakamichi, I got the sense that Nakamichi USA feels that it is OK to out a flaky product out and then handle the issue through a third party repair house eventhough they are aware of an inheirant mechanical design flaw with their units. Not a good scene IMHO.

I think the Nak units belong in something much more mushy that a P-Car and need a trained, on board valet doing the CD loading to keep the darn thing alive !!!

Now on the flip side, the Arc Audio PEQ and Butler are very solid and doing well.

Save much grief and your money, stay away from the Nak HU's !

Regards

Anir

Chuck,

Have you been talking to Rod Birch? He's scheduled to install the Arc 5150 amp, Focal speakers (165K2 in doors and 4" drivers in the rear shelf), and his Image Dynamics subs into my car in September. I'm currently planning to use the Denon DCT-R1 head unit, based on Rod's rec and the fact that it should integrate well into the 993 interior without looking too flashy. I've heard of nothing but problems with the in-dash multi-CD Nakamichi units.

Best of luck with your upgrade.

csertich

Thanks guys. Good info. I thought I had heard the Naks had some problems. I have been talking to Rod Birch but the Nak was my decision, not his recommendation. Since my brilliant decision, I've been reading about Nak problems. You would have thought I would have done things in the proper sequence. But NO. Not me.

I ordered all my equipment from Rod last week (same speakers Anir). I was thinking of using my Alpine with the new amp and speakers but that Denon sure looks interesting.

I'm concerned about cd's skipping. My car is lowered. My wife things the body is welded to the frame. But my Alpine hasn't skipped yet.....

What to do....

Think I'll just listen to that beautiful music that comes from behind the rear seats until I figure this out.

Jim/Anir-Thanks!

Chuck
Rennlist #030722-3780

DrZ

I unfortunatley have more experience with the CD-700 than I care to admit. The CD transport mechanism is over engineered and prone to becoming "unbalanced" by a simple tension spring misalignment. Only a $90 fix but a pain to have to deal with over and over again. Rumor has it that the advanced robotics were created by the Rube Goldberg design team!

Today I learned that a distorted treble tone circuit had blown my perfectly fine Dynaudio MD100 tweeters. I had planned on bypassing this anyway with outboard EQs so it is not worth it to me yet to pull this cursed HU. I have an Alpine 7909 waiting in the wings if (when?) the Nak acts up.

On the positive side. the SQ of Naks are considered a cut above their equally priced peers. The cd-400 is a new unit so no one knows much about it's reliability. The Denon R1 is the little brother of their flagship Z2 which many on the car HiFI boards are touting as the new reference standard. Both are expensive, feature for feature however, the Z1 is considered a "better" deal. A word of caution about Denon (car audio)is that they are not well distributed in the USA. The distributor Red Mountain Audio is going out of business( I had previously posted about their fire sale on Dynaudio). The reliability of these unit also remains an unknown, but previous Denons were like Naks known to be troubleprone. Alpine is a pretty safe bet as is the McIntosh MX406 which like the Nak cd700 looks really nice in a 993.

96P993

You might want to do some homework on the 400. From what I was told the 400 is made in a different factory the most of the other headunits..Nakamichi is aware of the problem several of their headunits have. I have seen, heard and played with the 400 and absolutely love the thing. I have not found another headunit that looks so at home in a Porsche then this piece. The cd mechanism is flawless, the controls are easy to use , and the thing looks amazing...Like I said do you homework on it...this headunit is the real deal and needs to be given some serious consideration

nman413

The Becker Monza mentioned here the other day looks really good. Is anyone interested in possibly finding out if there is some way we can get a shipment into the country (maybe through Rod)?

I am interested in upgrading the sound system however I would like to retain the stock look as much as possible.