I was out cleaning up the shop and I have a bad habit of pulling equipment off the shelves that I haven't looked at in years and checking them out. I've got a few Nakamichi Tape Decks out there including a nice entry-level BX-100. Even as an bottom of the line Nak, it's still pretty nice with it's brushed metal buttons and overall smooth mechanics. This one had the dreaded thrift store of death cut power cord. Someday Disney will make a movie of old cool electronics that get their cord cut just so there's no accidents. I've cut cords before but it's end of the line, smoking and arcing and just not worth repairing. Luckily this one was different, I grabbed the frayed wires and shoved them in an extension cord and I could hear something. I grabbed one of my test tapes, some selling advice course, and put it in. There's no way the belts would still work after years of sitting. At first it seemed like it wanted to play but wouldn't. I went a step further and plugged it into my Sansui Amp that I just got working (see another thread). There was no play direction on this unit so I flipped the tape over and boom.....it worked and it sounded great! At least for a cheesy sales tape playing on a amp and Realistic Speaker. It was a nice end to the evening as my heater went out and it was starting to get cold.
Nice find, congratz! I happen to own the successor, ie the BX-125 which added Dolby-C. It was indeed entry-level model in the Nakamichi range, but it was already competing with sharp models from other manufacturers, and it was hard to outperform. One of the best two-heads-single-capstan IMHO, and I'm totally fond of its sound.
Nakamichi BX series decks are still affordable. The BX-300 is rising rapidly in recognition of being a great 3-head deck. I have a BX-125 and BX-150. I used the BX-150 in a Nakamichi Travelling Tape project, years ago. Nando.
Here's an interesting write up on tape decks, there's some good information in here, looks like it's from a college. https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~./gdead/taping-guide/part1.html
In 1990-91 I bought my first cassette deck, Yamaha KX-530 ($400 from United Audio Center in Chicago). Side by side with 3-head Sony ES bought that same year, I could not tell the difference. I wonder if I could have bought anything Nak for under $500 in 1991?... Most probably I would have passed on Nak. I Loved "amorphous head" idea, and even after years of non-stop work Yamaha head looked like new. My understanding is Nak never bought into "amorphous", whatever that meant. But watching "Terminator" I thought that "amorphous" must be real important!