Above is another view of Mr Blackham's unusual Nagra SNN. As far as I can see, apart from not having
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the various anodised legends on the deck plate, also absent are the adjustable AGC threshold knob and
4 r' E0 Z" ]" j; i' G0 K; x3 q$ Tthe transport lock-out 'switch' next to the meter. The cover 'hinge' arrangement differs slightly from later
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machines, 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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% ]5 f4 z; V, i+ q9 u3 c8 CClick on either of the above images for more information.
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9 K* ^9 I0 C7 n* For those who are looking at the stereo versions of this recorder often to be found on 'Eday', do
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beware, 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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Nagra SNS - half track recording at 1 7/8 and 15/16 i.p.s. - surveillance quality recording in Mono
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Nagra SNST - Stereo recording at 1 7/8 and 15/16 i.p.s. - surveillance quality recording in Stereo
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Nagra SNSTR (recent) - Stereo recording at 3 3/4 and 1 7/8 i.p.s. - high quality recording in Stereo
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* _; y! h1 ^: z$ y$ F6 JApparently 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
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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
" Q! k; i' G3 W5 s$ ]$ D8 B" PDSP) with built in equalization to compensate for the quite limited frequency response of these
% Z: {& h1 w5 drecorders. 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
3 X# u' w' I% Q" Xbe possible to convert these machines for Hi-Fi use, but this would involve replacing most of the
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! `5 {4 v* `- G0 ?* q xCheaper to buy a rather bette
r stereo
IV-S in the first place!
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& S4 o) N3 p# sTape for the Nagra SN
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0 o; c5 W3 P9 q0 X3 PI have been amazed at the prices some people have been willing to pay on that wild west auction site for
( G0 j- G9 j) F: s" v; xthe little reels of tape for this machine. When I first acquired my example from the BBC naturally I
- @+ a# P6 S: g, e% E6 Y0 R1 Rwanted 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
2 k$ Y$ i# F% E9 h4 b- g'pancakes'. These are the un-flanged bulk reels of tape (about 10" dia) that are automatically wound into
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the 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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VERY silly money.
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