Nakamichi

is a Japanese consumer electronics brand that originated in Japan and gained a name from the 1970s onwards for innovative and high quality audio cassette decks. Nakamichi is a subsidiary of Chinese holding company Nimble Holdings. Nakamichi manufactured electronic devices from its founding in 1948 but only sold them under its name from 1972. It is credited with offering the world's first three-head cassette deck. Since 1999, its product range has included design-oriented home cinema audio systems, sound bars, speakers, headphones, mini hi-fi systems, automotive stereo products and video DVD products. Etsuro Nakamichi founded Nakamichi in 1948 as Nakamichi Research Corporation Ltd (中道研究所株式会社 Nakamichi Kenkyujo Kabushiki Kaisha) in Tokyo, Japan. It specialises in manufacturing portable radios, tonearms, speakers, and communications equipment. It was later headed by the founder's younger brother Niro Nakamichi. The company was originally established as a research and development firm in electronics and optics but later became known as a manufacturer of quality audio products. While its cassette decks were particularly well known, the company is also credited with audio innovations, such as self-centring record players, high-end DAT recorders, and ultra-compact slot-loading CD changers. In the 1950s, Nakamichi developed one of the first open reel tape recorders in Japan under the Magic Tone brand. In 1957, it developed and made its own magnetic tape heads, as well as launching the Fidela 3-head Open Reel Stereo Tape Deck. Because of its experience in manufacturing magnetic tape heads and equipment, in 1967 the company started making tape decks for a number of foreign manufacturers including Harman Kardon, KLH, Advent, Fisher, ELAC, Sylvania, Concord, Ampex and Motorola. From 1973, Nakamichi started to sell high-quality stereo cassette decks that benefited from the mass market's move away from reel-to-reel tape recorders to the cassette format.