Above is another view of Mr Blackham's unusual Nagra SNN. As far as I can see, apart from not having
& K; u: [3 t# l, pthe various anodised legends on the deck plate, also absent are the adjustable AGC threshold knob and
3 O0 ?5 H7 ?* T' Pthe transport lock-out 'switch' next to the meter. The cover 'hinge' arrangement differs slightly from later
8 D3 k6 }+ Z1 [6 x, p+ d emachines, as does the 'patina' of the anodised finish. A most interesting version, has anyone got another?
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(Apparently yes, I have recently been advised.)
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2 B7 [" j0 Y+ w2 LClick on either of the above images for more information.
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/ N: C$ i8 U5 |1 |9 r; V4 @% a* For those who are looking at the stereo versions of this recorder often to be found on 'Eday', do
3 A1 l4 u6 A; ]1 _- k0 Qbeware, as It is unlikely that these will be the recent versions designed to record high quality music.
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There are now apparently four versions of the Nagra 'SN':
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Nagra SNN - full track recording at 3 3/4 and 1 7/8 i.p.s. - high quality recording in Mono
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% Q" w4 v1 n; ~& N1 q5 O9 _Nagra SNS - half track recording at 1 7/8 and 15/16 i.p.s. - surveillance quality recording in Mono
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+ ^/ b# o: _* FNagra SNST - Stereo recording at 1 7/8 and 15/16 i.p.s. - surveillance quality recording in Stereo
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/ D& y, T1 I: {' c. u1 lNagra SNSTR (recent) - Stereo recording at 3 3/4 and 1 7/8 i.p.s. - high quality recording in Stereo
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' f, s- Y) v9 a, ]9 SApparently for covert surveillance use it was preferable to have two separate recording channels to
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have some chance of capturing a muffled or distant conversations. So these older stereo machines will
! m6 P4 ?4 l, c7 b& `therefore be
optimized for speech recording only, and will also
run at low speed for maximum
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recording time and not fidelity. Actually Nagra made a special playback loudspeaker system (25100
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DSP) with built in equalization to compensate for the quite limited frequency response of these
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recorders. A standard mono Nagra SNN running at 3 and 3/4, like the ones on this page are capable of
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truly Hi-Fi recording, but
the slow speed SNS and the SNST stereo versions are not. Perhaps it might
j5 ~! n! q: b/ Z# T- s" ybe possible to convert these machines for Hi-Fi use, but this would involve replacing most of the
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electronics and be very expensive.
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$ c7 b. Z/ u. p' }% NCheaper to buy a rather bette
r stereo
IV-S in the first place!
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! S- W0 p2 N' }: ~! p( Q0 r& @Tape for the Nagra SN
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3 E5 ]- K4 G2 B7 HI have been amazed at the prices some people have been willing to pay on that wild west auction site for
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the little reels of tape for this machine. When I first acquired my example from the BBC naturally I
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wanted to play with it and make some recordings. I knew that the tape was basically re-reeled cassette
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tape so I approached a tape duplication house in the UK and quite easily obtained a few part used
8 P$ Q* k6 F+ A'pancakes'. These are the un-flanged bulk reels of tape (about 10" dia) that are automatically wound into
0 i7 w, d; Z% S5 P. z: Z2 Tthe cassette shells. I then contacted Nagra UK (always helpful) and obtained for around ?5 each
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several pairs of empty plastic reels. It then was quite a simple matter to wind tape off the pancake and
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onto the Nagra plastic reel (by using the hand crank on the machine). I did this a few years ago and
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things may be slightly different these days, but perhaps worth investigating rather than spending some
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