TEAC Z-7000 YES TEAC Z SEVEN THOUSAND!

[gain wire]

Hey people!

OH MY GOD

I have never in my ten years of scrounging ebay for Technics SU-V4X's, MArantz Century collection components, TEAC A-7300's, Optonica RT-7100 and other oddities, seen this: TEAC Z-7000 cassette deck vintage - eBay (item 120656177059 end time Dec-14-10 13:13:55 PST)

Forget your Naks and Tandbergs, this is the real deal. TEAC Z-7000 cassette deck vintage - eBay (item 120656177059 end time Dec-14-10 13:13:55 PST)

I thought the least to do would be to warn you guys (I am sure no women are prone to GAS to this degree, at least in audio)!
Mind you the Dragon is an amazing deck whih is probably better on the mechanics (stability side). But anyway, enjoy..

 

[VHF man]

Hey people!

OH MY GOD

I have never in my ten years of scrounging ebay for Technics SU-V4X's, MArantz Century collection components, TEAC A-7300's, Optonica RT-7100 and other oddities, seen this: TEAC Z-7000 cassette deck vintage - eBay (item 120656177059 end time Dec-14-10 13:13:55 PST)

Forget your Naks and Tandbergs, this is the real deal. TEAC Z-7000 cassette deck vintage - eBay (item 120656177059 end time Dec-14-10 13:13:55 PST)

I thought the least to do would be to warn you guys (I am sure no women are prone to GAS to this degree, at least in audio)!
Mind you the Dragon is an amazing deck whih is probably better on the mechanics (stability side). But anyway, enjoy..

I own one of these machines - in perfect condx and indeed it's a fine deck and a real nak slayer once you upgrade the op-amps in the signal path and fix a minor cross coupling issue between the rec and play amps. I tweaked the playback eq on mine to conform to the Nak standard and I've also replaced the head with an updated version with better channel separation. The auto BLE still does a fine job of 20 - 22kHz on any tape and the transport mechanism on the deck is the best and most reliable DD of the entire cassette deck era.

 

[gain wire]

Cross-coupling? Really? What kind of problem was there?

Replaced the heads, did you? Wouldn't they have put in the best heads they ever produced? After all, it was their own "Dragon", and they should have put 100% in it..
In any case, I'll never be able to afford one and it wouldn't be such a great pairing with any of my systems, they're pretty average (h-k 490i, Mitsubishi DA-R15, JVC RX205, Sound Dynamics and Boston Acoustics speakers). Any deck like that would not be able to shine out.

 

[VHF man]

Cross-coupling? Really? What kind of problem was there?

Replaced the heads, did you? Wouldn't they have put in the best heads they ever produced? After all, it was their own "Dragon", and they should have put 100% in it..

It was about 10 years ago that I went through and gave mine a thorough service and I can't remember the finer details. From memory the cross coupling was due to the close proximity of the record and play amp PCB's which are stacked vertically and side by side. I remember noticing a problem on one channel (when I was running 12 and 16kHz test tones) - that the amplitude was cycling up and down by about + / - 2-3dB. I thought it was a head alignment issue but I eventually tracked the problem down. It was easily solved by placing a grounded copper shield between the 2 pcb's. The issue affected the accuracy and consistency of the auto calibration process.

The Z7000 was released in 1984-6 so by the mid 90's there was an updated head that was developed for their last TOTL pro deck. I bought one as a spare (for long term security) but I was curious to to see how it would peform so I did the swap-out. (A real Pr..k of a job too) The playback level was 6dB higher so the PB amp levels needed recalibrating and the eq needed a slight trim - both of which were trimpot adjustments. The improvement to channel separation was achieved through the PB head windings being anti-phase. I found out only after installing the head and it meant I had to redo the whole damn process. The improvement to S/N was not minor so the upgrade was worthwhile - fortunately.

There is only one belt used in this deck and it's for the power assisted door eject. Replacing it is also a P..k of a job but yes I did that too.