Akai X-360D

The one before GX — crossfield heads and where Akai actually started.

Every other Akai in this collection carries the glass-and-crystal-ferrite GX heads that made the brand’s name. This one doesn’t — it’s from the chapter just before that, when Akai licensed Tandberg’s crossfield bias technology and built its transports around conventional Permalloy heads. I keep it partly for what it plays, and partly because it’s the answer to ‘what came before GX?’

Introduced

c. 1968 · Japan

Track config

4-track stereo, reverse playback

Speeds

1⅞ / 3¾ / 7½ ips (15 ips via optional kit)

Motors

3 · hysteresis-synchronous capstan, 2 reel

Heads

4 · crossfield Permalloy (Tandberg-licensed)

Wow & flutter

0.04% RMS @ 7½ ips

Frequency response

~30 Hz–23 kHz ±3 dB @ 7½ ips

Weight

28 kg

SECTION 01

The Merits

The crossfield system is the thing to understand about this deck: a separate bias head sits directly opposite the record head, a design Akai licensed from Tandberg in the late 1960s as its answer to extending high-frequency response before ferrite heads existed. It’s a genuinely different engineering path to the same goal the later GX decks solve with head material instead.

‘Comput-O-Matic’ auto level control, real VU metering, and a silver-and-walnut cabinet that runs mounted vertically or horizontally round out a deck that clearly wasn’t a budget model in 1968.

Reverse playback (not record) means long tapes don’t need a manual flip partway through — a small convenience that was still novel at the time.

This is the ‘before’ chapter — the last-generation design standing just ahead of the GX heads that everything else in this collection inherited.

SECTION 02

The Quirks

Age is the honest quirk here. Motor capacitors and relay-board electrolytics failing over five-plus decades can cause speed drift and motor heating — common on a deck this old, and worth budgeting a service for rather than being surprised by.

Reverse-mode playback quality has come up as inconsistent on some surviving units in collector forums; I haven’t been able to confirm the exact cause, so it’s worth testing thoroughly in both directions before you buy rather than taking reverse playback for granted.

One long-time restorer’s verdict stuck with me: ‘a very complicated deck to take apart.’ If you ever need to service one yourself, budget the patience for it.

SECTION 03

The Sound

The crossfield heads have a different character than the GX ferrite heads elsewhere in this collection — a touch warmer, with a gentler top-end rolloff. It’s not a lesser sound, just an earlier one.

SECTION 04

Buying One

This is a genuine hysteresis-synchronous motor, which means — unlike the servo-driven Akais elsewhere in this collection — mains frequency is not a formality. The voltage spec is also thinner than I’d like: some documentation describes a 100–240 V switchable combo unit, other sources list a fixed 110–120 V deck-only spec. Check the actual rating plate on the unit in front of you rather than assuming.

How mine runs in the Philippines

Because the capstan motor here is truly synchronous, correct mains frequency is what keeps pitch accurate — not just a nice-to-have like it is on the servo-driven decks in this collection. Philippine mains runs 220 V / 60 Hz. If the nameplate shows a fixed 50 Hz unit, it’ll run roughly 20% fast here no matter what transformer you put in front of it. Many Japanese decks of this era do support both 50 and 60 Hz — but check before you plug in, don’t assume.

That’s the whole collection.

All twenty machines in the collection now have their own write-up. Thanks for reading this far — explore the rest of the collection, or start again from the top.