Nakamichi RM-200

A five-meter cable, a transport-only brain, and the cheapest way into Nakamichi's remote-control ecosystem.

Overview

The RM-200 is not a deck. It plugs into a deck so you can stop reaching across the room. Nakamichi built it as an optional wired remote control for the tape transport functions, and the documentation is consistent about what that means: transport, and only transport. Owners of the 700 ZXL who wanted to command the RAMM calibration buttons from the couch had to step up to the RM-300. The RM-200 was the transport-only unit for people who just wanted play, stop, fast-forward, rewind, and record without leaving their chair.

The cable is five meters. That number shows up in the 700 ZXL manual's English, German, and French sections - five meters, stated the same way every time. A manufacturer only repeats a detail like that when the length is the selling point. Five meters is enough to cross a listening room without stringing the cord down the middle of the floor. It is not enough to reach the kitchen.

The 700 ZXL documentation lists the RM-200 twice. Once is at the mechanism remote jack, where it is described as the fallback for transport-only use. The other is in the accessory roster alongside the RM-300, the NR-100 Dolby C processor, and the DM-10 head demagnetizer. So the RM-200 sat in a small catalog of Nakamichi-branded add-ons, and the company clearly expected buyers to pick a remote based on how much control they wanted. The RM-300 handled RAMM and transport. The RM-200 handled transport.

The BX-300 tells a slightly different story. HiFi-Stereo (December 1984, p.30) reported that the BX-300 provides a rear-panel jack for an optional remote-control accessory (RM-200). Its manual notes that a rear-panel jack accepts an optional remote-control accessory, and the RM-200 is the unit named for that job. A three-head, single-capstan deck with a 105 kHz bias frequency and a 20 Hz–20,000 Hz ±3 dB response on ZX, SX, and EXI tape was never going to need RAMM control — there was nothing to calibrate remotely — so the transport-only RM-200 was the natural match. The deck's own spec sheet puts it at 430 × 100 × 250 millimeters and 5.6 kilograms, which means the remote was designed to pair with a machine that sat on a shelf and stayed there. You ran the cable, you put the remote where you sat, and you stopped getting up.

According to every document that mentions it, the RM-200 is not a wireless device, a timer, a programmer, or anything with a display. It is a wired handset with transport buttons and a five-meter lead.