Nakamichi Dragon S/N 5736 Restored to perfection by Perry Esposito

The Nakamichi Dragon needs no introductions. If you are reading this, you probably know what you're looking at.

Meticulously rebuilt and finely tuned in April 2025 by one of the world's best Nakamichi technician, Perry Esposito, this deck has been restored to its original factory specifications and remains unused since.

The deck is in VG cosmetic condition with only minor imperfections consistent with age as can be seen in the attached photos.

See the deck in action in this video demo on YouTube.

Free shipping to continental USA. 
This item is not available for international shipping.

Work done:

• Rebuilt and regreased all transport moving links.
• Reinforced known weak left transport posts, left bottom hinge, and idler arm actuator link post.
• Replaced belts and idler tire.
• Rebuilt and regreased NAAC mechanism and installed new NAAC belt.
• Replaced both reel sense bulbs with long life versions.
  
• Cleaned and lubricated pressure rollers.
  
• Lubricated left pressure roller arm.
  
• Removed right pressure roller, cleaned, regreased, and re-aligned.
  
• Cleaned and regreased reel stacks.
  
• Replaced all 100uF and larger power supply/logic board capacitors, as well as 4.7uF within heatsink, with Nichicon power supply specific caps.
  
• Upgraded main filter caps from 10k +6.8kuF to 2x10KuF, to match later models.
  
• Replaced 4 PP 4700pF orange caps in Dolby circuit with WIMA PP matched 1% caps.
  
• Replaced 8 100uF 10V filter caps on Dolby chips with 220uF 16V Nichicon caps.
  
• Installed Nakamichi SI direction change time delay modification.
  
• Installed 4 WIMA PP HF compensation caps on play head eq circuits.
  
• Performed full head alignments, all 3 heads in both directions with Nakamichi Gauges & tapes. 
  
• Adjusted calibration tone levels and meters, and Dolby levels.
  
• Calibrated NAAC response.