As the owner of two 505’s. +1 on zedex comments above. I would say the 505 rivals the Dragon when it comes to sound quality. Definitely has the Nak house sound.
Thanks again for all the replies... kept the BX-300 and love it. Visitors to The Cave, mostly unfamiliar with Nakamichi tape decks, can't believe the sound quality of it. I'll keep it forever...
Actually...RX 202 is not auto reverse in the sense your thinking. The heads dont flip like on other AR decks. The tape itself flips so you dont have azimuth problems like on a head flipping deck. Tape travel is always the same direction like on a regular non AR deck. So not using the auto reverse feature would be a waste of a "good" AR deck. Nak UDAR is that good.
Nakamichi UDAR is the only cassette deck which is auto-reverse without compromise. The tape cassette flips instead of the heads, keeping the azimuth alignment stable and not an issue. A tour de force in cassette deck build and engineering, and also equally a tour de force in the sound quality too.
