Nakamichi Dragon Electrostatic Owners & Discussion Thread

[Guest yamaha_man]

Am I the only person who doesn't rate these speakers?

I heard them a year or so ago at winovate in Melbourne and can honestly say they sounded terrible.

I wouldn't even offer a couple of grand for them.

Edited August 31, 2012 by yamaha_man

[rocky500]

I am curious Robby the robot.

Is there any Electrostatic speakers that you like or is it just these ones you don't like?

My friend is after a set of new speakers and he is looking at electros.

[Guest yamaha_man]

Haven't listened to many but all I do know is that the Whise/Nakamichi sounded terrible. Anyone else hear them at Winovate? What was your thoughts?

Edited August 31, 2012 by yamaha_man

[THOMO]

Am I the only person who doesn't rate these speakers?

I heard them a year or so ago at winovate in Melbourne and can honestly say they sounded terrible.

I wouldn't even offer a couple of grand for them.

I tried them in my TV room which has horrible acoustics[built like a squash court] and they did not sound great there.Mind you nothing does.

So it could have been that the room simply did not suit them.

They also reveal that some very contrived recordings that you might think sound good are actually just a facade of good recording-[things like Dire Straits and Jennifer Warnes spring to mind].

Natural sounding recordings sound excellent.

They probably suit jazz and small scale acoustic/vocal music best.Wonderful with something like Jacqui Dankworth -It Happens Quietly -which can sound pretty uninvolving on lower resolution speakers.They also expose sub standard musicianship.[most pop and alternative unfortunately]

Many people equate great sound with sonic fireworks,panning stereo effects,voices stretched all over the soundstage etc.People after that sort of sound will probably not be so impressed with these.

[sir sanders zingmore]

I'd love to hear them properly set up. As I mentioned, I felt that the pair I heard were far from what I think they are capable of.

Am I the only person who doesn't rate these speakers?

I heard them a year or so ago at winovate in Melbourne and can honestly say they sounded terrible.

I wouldn't even offer a couple of grand for them.

You are more direct than me Joe, I was being polite

(I didn't hear them at winovate btw)

[Guest JohnA]

You are more direct than me Joe, I was being polite

(I didn't hear them at winovate btw)

Joe doesnt beat around the bush. Always tells it as he sees it, or hears it in this case

I have no probs with that

[Steve M]

I'm not sure what people hear and don't hear ...and this is a very strange hobby in terms of individual pursuits, individual thinking and individual taste.

If other people hear the Nak in less than ideal or even difficult surroundings (ie, shop fronts, factory and showroom conditions) not in the comfort of your home and with your own preferred or not in the 'sweet spot' of the speaker then, the problem lies with that circumstance - not the Nakamichi speaker.

Steve.

Edited September 1, 2012 by Steve M

[Guest JohnA]

Steve

i have never heard the speakers so cannot comment

but we all have different tastes and no one is right or wrong.

Like horns, you love them or hate them

electrostats can be the same

box speakers are also dissliked by any people,

then you have brand likes and disslikes, like B&W, wilson, focal, etc etc.

Each to their own mate, and we shouldnt worry if someone dissagrees, because in reality, are we purchasing for our own enjoyment, or to please others?

[Steve M]

That's the point JohnA ...how about others allowing for the individual taste of the 5-6 people who have already expressed a liking for the Nak speaker in this thread? Words such as 'terrible' in the above post are out of place and far from the truth.

Would you accept it if someone said that your SGR speaker was 'terrible'? It would just be an untruth ...

Just like the Yamaha NS1000 that Robbie the Robot favours, it can be a 'terrible' speaker to some people, having a dry 40Hz sealed bass, sounding shut-in and boxy, having a metallic shrill, even described as having a Japanese electronic signature etc? But we all know the NS1000 can be quite a nice sounding speaker with the right amplifier and room, so is not necessarily a 'terrible' speaker.

I guess all I am saying is that people should stop being judgmental about these things and not make absolute statements like that.

Steve.

Edited August 31, 2012 by Steve M

[Guest JohnA]

People have told me they dont like the SGR sound, or its not to their taste.

It has even been posted on here a few times.

I dont let it bother me, as i dont need others approval

When posting something on a forum, you are going to have to expect negative comments also.

If that is someones impression of a product, so be it.

Wont be the first time, nor the last time.

[Steve M]

Fair enough John, I know you have a mature approach to these things.

Cheers,

Steve.

[Guest JohnA]

Steve

i forgot to congratulate you on the purchase.

I do think they look very nice and it seems you are very happy with them which is he most important part.

I always enjoy reading your blog and your hifi journey.

[Guest kab]

If you like the sound , then thats all that matters.

enjoy. cheers.

[Steve M]

Hello Kab,

Well it's not just me is it? There's several positive listeners of the Nak in this thread, there is no substitute for home listening especially something as placement sensitive as an electrostatic speaker, the Nak more so because it is quite critical of poor recordings.

Steve.

[rocky500]

Thanks to Steve M for inviting me around for a listen.

Wow, first thing when walking in to his place is the Nakas look fantastic. Slim, Slick and very stylish. This is one impressive looking speaker.

I have always been drawn to ribbon type speakers and have never actually heard a electrostatic panel type speaker before.

It is there speed and airy delicate top end that draws me to them. Wind instruments, guitars, vioins and others seem to hit the right spots with me. Never seem to get this with normal tweeters. They can be eary, delicate, haunting and emotional when called upon.

Well the Nakas have this but even more than what I have heard before. They image incredibly well and have excellent depth to the music. Really do project a nice soundstage. There bass is incredible for such a small enclosure. It really is a seamless sounstage from top to bottom. Vocals sound incredible.

I really enjoyed listening to them and think they are a absolute bargain for what you get for your money. I would be tempted to buy them right now.

But there is one thing I have never experienced before and that is the sweetspot is small. With my previous ribbon speakers, I have been told the vertical plane is small. Supposedly when you get up out of the chair it changes quite a bit. I never have really heard this and can move around my room and still get great sound.

With the nakas it completely changes. Stand up and the sound totally changes. Moving over to the side and it changes. It is like a totally different speaker. Can sound quite dull or bass heavy, but once you move back to the listening spot it is incredible and the soundstage just opens right up again.

Not sure if this is a trait of all panel speakers.

So if you always sit in the right spot these are phenomenal speakers, which beat out my Adam speakers with shear Topend and bass. They have more speed and attack and more of what I like in a speaker.

Super impressive and a absoute bargain for the price, but I don't think I could live with them as I mostly never seem to be sitting in the sweetspot listening to music at my place. Also movie night might be only superb for a couple of people. I could see the wrestling match happening everytime to sit in the main seats.

Thanks again Steve for letting me have a listen. You have a very impressive setup there that sounds awesome.

EDIT ADDED: The speakers I brought around were the Adam Tensor Delta Active Bookshelf speakers.

I would say the Nakas have that bit more live sounding to them.

Edited September 1, 2012 by rocky500

[Guest JohnA]

Rocky,

i noticed this same thing when i listened to the Analysis speakers at secher audio.

When in the sweet spot, they imaged perfectly, move your head ever so slightly one way or another and it suffered greatly.

First time i ever experianced such a thing.

[Steve M]

Rocky/Rob: thanks for your accurate appraisal about the Nak and Adam speakers, typical of your honest no axe to grind approach to hi-fi which I have noticed with most of your postings on SNA.

Yes agreed, it can be quite disconcerting the first time you clap ears on an electrostatic how there is a definite sweet spot. It's the nature of the beast and common to Quads, MLs, Mageplanar etc. Even the ML with it's curvilinear array to reduce this effect, still has a sweet spot if you are into serious audiophile listening. The sweet spot nature of panel speakers has never bothered me as the benefits of achieving extreme low-level detail and image specificity far outweigh the disadvantages of keeping your ears in the zone. I find that hi-fi is largely an individual pursuit anyway, as the other members in my household at least, are blissfully unaware of what we do.

I found the Adam Tensors to be a superbly built threeway loudspeaker with excellent controlled behaviour that doesn't seem to put a foot wrong. The turntable and forward sounding Lyra cartridge seemed to bring out the best in them. They were helped In the bass by my 11" Eton 11-581 sealed isobaric subwoofer which introduced slam and a certain lushness in my rather large 6.5m x 8m listening area.

Steve.

Edited September 1, 2012 by Steve M

[Telecine]

These are a couple a larger pair getting finnished in black Ebony frames 2.7m x 1.5m full range.

Nice turntable. Yours?

[davidsss]

People have told me they dont like the SGR sound, or its not to their taste.

It has even been posted on here a few times.

I dont let it bother me, as i dont need others approval

When posting something on a forum, you are going to have to expect negative comments also.

If that is someones impression of a product, so be it.

Wont be the first time, nor the last time.

We all have our subjective preferences when it comes to the way music is presented. This impacts upon our preferences for equipment. I think even more so with speakers assuming you are comparing good speakers. Hence one person's fabulous speaker doesn't appeal to everyone.

I've only ever heard one set of stats and they sounded fantastic. These things look like they would be great.

DS

[chucky3042]

Hi

Just a quick note. I had a set of Logan Summits during the design phase of the Nakas for comparisons, and we compared sweet spots between the two and the Nakas had a broader sweet spot compared to the Nakas. As stated previously the curved array does not work except psycho acoustically -if it looks curved it must disperse better.

When I first looked into ELS in 1995 and invited Rob Mckinlay for a visit demo at my place in Melbourne Rob showed an ancestor of his ELS3. Frankly it had poor bass, low sensitivity, mixed treble, very beamy BUT it still had something I had not heard before in any speaker an amazing sense of live- being there. At that moment I was sold and embarked in co operative research with Rob for many years.

Rob and I independently (I claim - Rob could disagree) designed the Acorn and our ESL 1800 (only 2 made) both nearly identical in all parameters of array type/ size / gaps/ spacing. This is still the best speaker I have heard BUT it is still quite directional, and the Naka’s are better in that parameter, but clearly not as dispersed as cones, horns, ribbons etc.

In terms of a general home compatible (WAF) speaker the Naka’s win as they have huge bass, good looks and far more position tolerant.

We all have personal speaker preference and bias often formed by 20, 30, 40 or more years of listening typically on cone box speakers. When you first hear an electrostatic MOST people say they are harsh or over mid –treble prominent, but when tested they are flat from a frequency response point of view. What you are hearing is a lack of cone / box resonance as shown in the impulse time delay response. In a cone speaker things still bong after 2ms whereas in the Naka’s its all over by 200 us (10 times faster). Many people have grown to like and expect these additional colorations and when gone the description is harshness.

I always liken it to a person living their life in a glass house, when they step outside into the real world everything looks harsh and sharp. I remember years ago being at a reviewers house who did not like any speaker if it did not sound like his Dynaudio speakers. When I spoke to his wife I found out that he NEVER listened to live music instead it was always his cones. YEP – he found the ELS sound harsh and disturbing.

As a final true story about 10 years ago we organised (in Vass Electronics) a comparison between the ELS 3 and the Quad 63 to a group of 10 audiophiles. 9 preferred the ELS3 and 1 preferred the quads (she was 70 with a hearing aid on one side)

I fully recognise that I am biased with too many years listening to electro’s and as one of the designers of the Naka’s I will have no objectivity!!

Regards

Charlie

[TP1]

I fully recognise that I am biased with too many years listening to electro’s and as one of the designers of the Naka’s I will have no objectivity!!

Regards

Charlie

Charlie

With something so accomplished as the Nakamichi Dragons, why didn't the venture continue? I am aware of the financial conditions but high end audio is still alive and kicking in many parts of the world. I would have thought the nakas would have made quite a splash.

[Grimmie]

I have known of these speakers and their history for quite some time, I spoke to Charles and was interested in them back in 2009 but was so concerned by the fact that they were given up on, first by Nakamichi, then by the creators who didn't follow them up an re-establish the brand and manufacture elsewhere. I do know that it's not as simple as that and no doubt the point had been reached where pouring good money after bad was a heart-breaking moment and the end of a dream.

Nevertheless such a superb speaker deserves a better fate and I wonder what the cost of bringing them back to life would be. Are the machinery, dies, component parts etc still in existence? could the dream be re-started if investment capital was available? How much are we talking here, 50, - 100K

[sir sanders zingmore]

I auditioned these in Melbourne When I was upgrading my speakers a couple of years ago. I was very keen on electrostats having heard some fine examples (quads, andyr's Maggies, Martin Logan). I love the sound of 'stats but found that I needed some extra bass 'oomph' and the only hybrids I'd heard, the MLs (I don't recall the model) just didn't integrate properly. So I was very excited to read about the Whise electrostats.

There was musician at a place called "Magic Flutes" who said he was a distributor and invited me round for a listen. The speakers looked as if they'd just been plonked almost at random in a listening room that was far from ideal (open plan kitchen/ living area, loads of glass doors, sharp edges etc). Anyway, they guy was raving about how as a musician, he had never heard such real sounding speakers in his life.. Of course I couldn't wait to hear them.. But as I've said before, I'm pretty sure the listening room was far from ideal and the guy continued to tell me how real they sounded but for the life of me I couldn't hear it.

The other thing that concerned me, which I have mentioned in another thread on these speakers, was the massive variation in price. He was selling them for $12k. I'd seen them on eBay a month before for $17k and he assured me that the price would soon be going up to $20k. A week later I saw them on eBay again for $9k. All for supposedly new speakers.

The whole experience was a little off-putting and made me look elsewhere.

Obviously, that is my experience only and I mean no disrespect to those that love these speakers... Thats the beauty of this hobby, everyone likes different stuff.

[THOMO]

I auditioned these in Melbourne When I was upgrading my speakers a couple of years ago. I was very keen on electrostats having heard some fine examples (quads, andyr's Maggies, Martin Logan). I love the sound of 'stats but found that I needed some extra bass 'oomph' and the only hybrids I'd heard, the MLs (I don't recall the model) just didn't integrate properly. So I was very excited to read about the Whise electrostats.

There was musician at a place called "Magic Flutes" who said he was a distributor and invited me round for a listen. The speakers looked as if they'd just been plonked almost at random in a listening room that was far from ideal (open plan kitchen/ living area, loads of glass doors, sharp edges etc). Anyway, they guy was raving about how as a musician, he had never heard such real sounding speakers in his life.. Of course I couldn't wait to hear them.. But as I've said before, I'm pretty sure the listening room was far from ideal and the guy continued to tell me how real they sounded but for the life of me I couldn't hear it.

The other thing that concerned me, which I have mentioned in another thread on these speakers, was the massive variation in price. He was selling them for $12k. I'd seen them on eBay a month before for $17k and he assured me that the price would soon be going up to $20k. A week later I saw them on eBay again for $9k. All for supposedly new speakers.

The whole experience was a little off-putting and made me look elsewhere.

Obviously, that is my experience only and I mean no disrespect to those that love these speakers... Thats the beauty of this hobby, everyone likes different stuff.

Possibly a preamp mismatch too.Which happens of course.

I have found they are pretty fussy that way.I tried a SS preamp and passive one and both did not sound right

I rate my Gale 401s as equal to a modern speaker of around $15,000 [they cost the same as QUAD electrostats when new and the best speakers really have not improved in that time frame] ,and I would rate these electrostats at that sort of level.So $15,000 retail was not an unreasonable price.

No speaker will appeal to everyone but these seem pretty easy to listen to and free from obvious weaknesses so why somebody would find that they sound poor is a bit of a mystery to me.

It suggests a pretty serious component or room mismatch.

As I mentioned I owned some Ambience hybrid ribbons and could not get them sounding even close to good in my house.I sold them to a bloke who had a much different size and shape room and they sounded very good in that space.So such things do happen.

[sir sanders zingmore]

you can buy a pair here for $5k or make an offer.

The ad refers to this thread too !