Ed Cherney told me to toss it.
But he was making peace with the fact that he was going to die in a few months. I told him a bit of the backstory and he laughed and reiterated his point.
The Nakamichi 582 was the ultimate cassette deck.
This ain't no Sony, no AIWA, no portable, this is a Ferrari. Or was back when cassette recording was still a thing. The 582 came with a little screwdriver that allowed you to align the heads, adjust the EQ and azimuth using a built-in tone generator. And the tapes it generated? You would not believe it, you couldn't tell the difference from the original recording. But the legend was true. If you played a tape you recorded on a Nakamichi on another deck it just didn't sound good. It was playable, but if you cared about sound... I ended up buying a cheap AIWA just to record cassettes for my car.
Not that the Nakamichi was foolproof. My first issue arose not long after I bought it. It wouldn't generate a test signal that hit zero on the meters. At that time Nakamichi was on Colorado in Santa Monica, so I packed the thing up, took it there, waited my turn, and the Japanese guy who waited on me...laughed at me and then insulted me. It took all of my gumption to stand my ground, reiterate there was a problem. So the guy deigned to test it himself...and lo and behold he had the same problem. And after fiddling with it for about thirty seconds, he lifted the whole unit up and RAN into a back room, having said nothing. He reappeared about fifteen minutes later with a smile on his face. He said it was the TAPE! The best tape TDK made, and then he said that TDK made their tape, Nakamichi had its own line, and that every once in a while you get a bad batch...
And then there was the time the entire machine froze. I had no money but my sometime to be wife and then ex said I shouldn't live without it, I should be able to use it, I should have that functionality. Ultimately I drove somewhere in the South Bay where Nakamichi now had its headquarters and paid two hundred dollars and change to get it repaired. This was 1985. I'd purchased the deck in 1979. And while I'm waiting for the clerk to retrieve my unit, this guy standing next to me in the waiting room tells me he wants to buy it, how they have a whole fleet of 582s, they use them at the institute, or some formal name like that. He offered me less than the repair cost. But as I continued to talk to him it came out that he was a Scientologist, and they used Nakamichis in their reproduction facility.
Now a week ago a promoter friend sent me a Bad Company tape made straight from the board back in the seventies. I was worried about the quality of said tape, but it turned out to be a Maxell, so my anxiety diminished. Cheap tape flakes, but Maxell is pretty good. And then I realized...
I had to play the tape in the Nakamichi. Which is like firing up a Ferrari that's been under wraps for a decade.
I had a Walkman. They sent it along with a cassette of the latest Lumineers album. The funniest thing is it was playing in the box. Not the tape, but the built-in radio. We came home from Vail and we're sorting through the mail and we're starting to freak out, where is that sound coming from? Took us about half an hour to figure out it was the Walkman inside the box.
Not that it was a Walkman, it was some off-brand. Good for a promotion.
And I listened to the tape and then I put the "Walkman" on the counter where it sat for weeks. And then...
I'm a hoarder. My girlfriend is just the opposite. I'm stunned she doesn't throw ME out! And I'm sitting there looking at this piece of junk, thinking I might want to play a tape in the future, but, nah...
So I toss it.
And I don't think about it again until this promoter friend sends me this cassette.
My car stereo doesn't even have a CD player, never mind a tape deck. It came down to the Nakamichi.
2
Normally I like to start open-ended projects early in the day. Otherwise, if I can't fix it, can't solve the problem, I can't disengage, I end up frustrated working on it into the wee hours and then being unable to fall asleep.
But I'd had this cassette the better part of a week, I didn't want to be ungrateful.
So I fired up the amp and clicked one of the tape inputs. Turned on the Nakamichi, inserted the tape, pressed play and...
Nothing happened.
It looks like there's light on the VU meters. I mean I'm getting power, right?
But then I pull the unit out and realize it's not plugged in. So I plug it into an outlet and...nothing. But maybe it's the outlet, so I plug it into a known live outlet and...still nothing.
Oh well, the Nakamichi has a problem.
So I go to eject the cassette and... The button pushes in and stays there, the cassette door won't pop out.
Okay, now I start to wrestle with it. But nothing works.
So I go to the expert.
Google. There's an answer for everything. And there's an answer for my problem too, it comes right up. Turns out there's a plastic piece that is known to break and if it has broken the door won't open. But the other thing the boards tell me is, whatever I do, DON'T FORCE IT!
So now what?
I decide I'm going to do surgery. I mean if I take off the cover I can get the tape, right?
I go get the toolbox, wondering if I've got the right-sized screwdriver and it turns out I do.
Turns out taking off the cover is not that difficult, I'm proud of myself.
But I'm nowhere near fixing my problem.
I ultimately decide I have to go deeper, I have to take off the faceplate.
Well now...
There are five screws on top, of different sizes, and they're tiny, and if I can even get them out can I keep from losing them? I know, I know, I should have a plastic tray, holding all the screws, but I'm on a mission now and when you're on a mission, either you stop or continue, and I couldn't stop, because the tape was still locked up!
And I try removing some of these screws and I'm at my limit so I go back to Dr. Google. Whereupon I find the Nakamichi repair manual.
Voila!
Well, no. It's written in English, but unless you've worked for NASA, good luck. But one thing is clear, I only have to remove three of the five screws, so I dive back in.
But the faceplate still won't come off.
Hmm... I turn the unit over and it turns out there are another three screws on the bottom! Which won't come out. I'm turning and turning and are they stripped or... I mean I've come this far, I've got to get the faceplate off.
Which I ultimately do.
And when I do, all the dials and buttons pop off the faceplate. They're all over the floor. This isn't good, but...let me first get the cassette out.
And not only the dials and buttons pop out, but so did the broken piece! It was all very clear. But I'm pushing on buttons and pulling on belts and the damn well won't open so I can retrieve the tape.
And I'm pushing every piece of plastic in there. You'd be stunned how much stuff there is in there, a veritable Rube Goldberg construction.
I mean if it's electronic, I'm screwed. But I think the eject button is one thing that is manual. I should be able to push a lever and...
NOPE!
Well maybe it pushes this belt. That's one of the reasons I was reluctant to fire up the Nakamichi to begin with, the belts are known to stretch over time, and ultimately break. And it had been years since I'd used it... And I'm wary of stretching this belt and then I hear Ed Cherney's words in my brain. Maybe he was right, maybe he wasn't being offhand about it, maybe it had nothing to do with being close to the end, maybe it was just TIME!
I mean the deck is forty six years old. But I scrimped and saved to buy it. I'm just gonna toss it?
But now it gets worse. Can I really just toss it anyway? Don't I have to go to a special place to dispose of electronic gear?
Now I'm kneeling on the floor. And my body hurts. And I'm wondering...am I too old to do this?
Forget whether someone can actually fix this thing, have I reached the point where I'm so old I shouldn't be addressing tasks like this?
I'm not a guy with a workshop. I wouldn't say I'm handy. But when it comes to logic, I'm pretty good. I love fixing the toilet, getting TVs to work, it's all about thinking it out. It's kind of fun. But it can be really frustrating.
And now I'm starting to sweat. So I turn the A/C up a notch, or down, depending how you see it.
And I'm touching and pushing everything inside this unit and nothing will pop the door.
And that's when I realize...
I can just break it.
I mean that I can do. But I'm going to sacrifice this nearly thousand dollar tape deck for a one dollar cassette?
But the cassette is viable, and the deck is not.
And now my mind starts to drift...
Why do I expect this forty six year old unit to work anyway? Nakamichi's in the rearview mirror. Recording on cassettes is in the rearview mirror. And the new solutions are so much better. There's not the issue of the tape, the transport, the EQ and the azimuth, there's no wear and tear the more you play it... And unlike vinyl, digital has no surface noise, and it certainly doesn't skip. It's AMAZING!
So what I've got here is a relic. Can I toss it?
And my entire life is flashing in front of my eyes. When I bought this deck, when I repaired it, being afraid to use it for fear it would break again.
I'm thinking of the girl I lived with when I purchased it, who was mad I spent all that money on it instead of her.
I'm thinking of the lost nineties.
The twenty first century and Napster and the digital revolution and...
It's already 2025! They're doing twenty five year retrospectives. America's going to have its 250th birthday next year. I remember the Bicentennial!
I don't feel old.
Then again, I'm roaming around the floor dirty and lightheaded...
I'm getting more and more depressed.
No wonder it costs so much to repair anything. Just GETTING to the problem is an effort, never mind solving it.
And I still can't solve it.
So now it comes down to breaking the deck. Can I really do that?
And then the door pops open.
IT'S A MIRACLE!
I pushed some piece of plastic inside...I couldn't repeat the process, but it worked!
So now what?
I've got the tape, do I just toss the deck? I mean I could have forgone all that effort, broken the door and retrieved the cassette and not wasted all that time.
No, I'm going to screw this thing back together. Well, at least I'm going to try.
And it ain't easy. Certain screws won't grip. But with enough OCD therapy I decide I'm not going to force it, if the screw doesn't fall out I'm not going to to continue to turn it until it stops.
So now I've got to install all the dials and buttons.
Easier than I thought, but to align them? So the indicators line up as they should? That is not easy. And when I get it wrong I have to pull the faceplate off to remove and reinstall them.
And then I'm all done and I realize some of the buttons...they have tiny little white spots that are indicators, and I hadn't seen them in the low light and was I gonna leave them misaligned or get them right?
I couldn't leave them wrong, even though they would have worked. I mean if I'm going to put this unit back together, I'm going to do it right.
And then I realize I forgot to put the well's cover back on and...
I'm definitely not taking the faceplate off again.
So I decide to squeeze it on. Instinct has taken over. My conscious brain is telling me this is a bad idea, it'll probably break, but then it pops in!
This is AMAZING!
Now all I have left is to screw the cover back on. And this turns out to be amazingly easy.
And then I'm done.
NOW WHAT?
Am I really going to pay to get this deck fixed? Is there anybody who CAN fix it? And if I fix it, when am I going to use it, other than to play this Bad Company tape.
This is the moment to throw it away. I've achieved my mission. I'm wasted and I'm covered in dust, but the surgery was successful. It can now be MY choice to toss the Nakamichi as opposed to being forced to because I broke it to get the tape out or couldn't manage to put the damn thing back together.
Am I willing to break with the past? Write off my prior investment, forget about sunk costs? This is about the Nakamichi, but really it's about MUCH MORE!
Do I toss out the Technics SL1300, the old top of the line, which works but really needs the speed pot adjusted? I mean I've got other turntables. But that Technics is direct drive and...
What else should I throw away?
One thing is for sure, when I die my family will throw EVERYTHING AWAY!
And I've accepted this, but I've told Felice over and over, NOT THE VINYL RECORDS! They're worth a fortune! Don't toss them, don't just give them away, sell them, not for the money but because I spent decades building the collection and it's worth more to me than the records themselves!
Really? A monument to myself?
Did I tell you I threw out all my laminates? Larry still has all of his, he showed them to me.
Now since then I've kept a few, like all access for the Rolling Stones, but... All this stuff I have, how recently have I used it? But I've got it and I know where it is and someday...
This is another of the secrets of aging. Only a secret because no one talks about it, no one wants to admit they're old, that they're going to die... Your stuff contains less and less meaning. You realize certain people you're never going to see again. You start to realize you're going to die and...
Don't tell me to be optimistic, you're just in denial. I'm just trying to face facts. I mean I skied 102 days last season, to what degree are you even physically active? To what degree won't you do things because you're afraid of injury?
And right now, let me count them... I have ten pairs of skis. And only two are not current models. And let me tell you, I can rationalize them all, but there was a point in my life when if I had a quiver this big I'd be thrilled and proud and I'm not saying I don't like having these skis, but there's a level of meaning that's just gone.
Like Ed Cherney.
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