Nakamichi 45z or Eclipse 55430

I can relate ... sounds like Nak is still expecting their customers to
put up with an awful lot of crap just to get that sweet sound ... at
least the CR-7A I forked out $900 bucks for hasn't missed a beat ever
... one of these days I'm going to open it and find out who really built
the sucker ...

JD
former TD etc. owner ...

Well, I can only speak of my own experience with the CD-45z, which was
unpleasant, to say the least. I probably set a world record on
returning a head unit for replacement with that one.
All six of the CD-45z's I put in my truck had weak ejection motors. All
six had difficulty consistently reading my new clean retail CD's. All
six had scratches on the glass face, some worse than others. One of
them had a curly black hair under the glass face (!).
Hey, Clarence Thomas doesn't work for Nakamichi, does he?
These units were all new guaranteed. Three from June 1999, three from
July 1999.
I've since bought a Blaupunkt Munchen, which performs as advertised.
The worst part about my Nakamichi fiasco is that I really wanted those
units to work, really, really bad. The head unit is the part of an auto
stereo that is on display for all to see. I've put a couple years and
more than a few thousand dollars into my little stereo for my Ford
F-150. Imagine showing the system off to a co-worker, or anybody, for
that matter, only to have your "high end" Nak CD player start skipping
around like Minnie Fucking Mouse.
Real impressive.
I had a Nak TD1200 II in the 80's, which was also a little buggy, but
the quality of the Nake tape deck, well, if you haven't heard one, it's
hard to describe how beautiful they sound. That unit was a sound
quality dream.
But the Nakamichi CD-45z didn't sound better than the Alpine 7830 it
replaced, or the Blaupunkt which replaced it. They all sound pretty
damn good.
Anyway, I want to be a positive voice here, and say that I'm quite
pleased with my Precision Power amplifiers, my MB Quart component set,
my Eclipse EQ, and my JL Audio subwoofers.
Just got No Doubt's "Return of Saturn", and you know what's cool? My CD
player (the Blaupunkt) played it perfectly immediately.
That's what I want, and that's what I got, for my four hundred dollars.
Rich.

what are the problems exactly with the Nak 45z?

From past experience, I would take the Audiovox over the Nak.
Rich.

last time I heard, they had problems with the 45z. its probably fixed now
though. from past experience i would take nak over the eclipse. think
preout voltage is more also now than that eclipse.