Nakamichi TD-500
Not much is documented about the Nakamichi TD-500. What can be established with reasonable confidence is that it was a cassette deck that sat in Nakamichi's lineup between the TD-400 and the TD-700, and that it was sold during the mid-to-late 1980s. A dealer advertisement in HiFI-Stereo (November 1985, p.143) listed it at $499. That put it well below the flagship Dragon ($1,299) and the TD-700 ($679) of that period. By March 1988, the same publication showed the street price had climbed to $609 (p.112). That suggests it stayed on sale for several years, likely with some revisions along the way.
The TD-500 appears to have shared much of its engineering with the TD-700. A review of the TD-700 in HiFI-Stereo (May 1985, p.43) called the "nearly identical TD-500" different mainly in certain features, and praised the deck's high-frequency output stability when measured against BASF test tapes. The same review said the TD-700's outputs were at line level, brought out separately for front and rear speakers. It is not clear whether the TD-500 kept this multi-output arrangement or simplified it.
Beyond its place in the catalog and its pricing, the record is thin. No service manual, owner's manual, or detailed contemporary review devoted specifically to the TD-500 has turned up in the Archive's holdings. The general design language of Nakamichi's mid-1980s work, with its clean front panel and transport controls, is familiar to collectors. Specifics on the TD-500's head configuration, transport mechanism, and bias system remain undocumented.
Known facts, summarized:
- Cassette deck, mid-1980s through at least early 1988
- Advertised price: $499 (Nov 1985), $609 (Mar 1988)
- Positioned between TD-400 and TD-700 in Nakamichi's lineup
- Described by HiFI-Stereo as "nearly identical" to the TD-700
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