Above is another view of Mr Blackham's unusual Nagra SNN. As far as I can see, apart from not having
5 C x2 M# x$ athe various anodised legends on the deck plate, also absent are the adjustable AGC threshold knob and
! w3 B3 _4 z' a9 Y9 ^2 B cthe 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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, ]5 y: S7 O9 S/ B% \( z(Apparently yes, I have recently been advised.)
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7 F% |8 M' E" {0 ]! RClick on either of the above images for more information.
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* For those who are looking at the stereo versions of this recorder often to be found on 'Eday', do
' }% c( R( X# i8 \/ n* W+ ]* bbeware, as It is unlikely that these will be the recent versions designed to record high quality music.
! j0 z3 `, _ j6 G& |) F( tThere are now apparently four versions of the Nagra 'SN':
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' N, a* ^6 X! Q8 p8 @. y mNagra SNN - full track recording at 3 3/4 and 1 7/8 i.p.s. - high quality recording in Mono
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2 K4 Z- A3 U, ]: @' R/ SNagra 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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Apparently for covert surveillance use it was preferable to have two separate recording channels to
+ y" l6 C% u0 U. Ghave some chance of capturing a muffled or distant conversations. So these older stereo machines will
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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
# K+ a' Z* q, r" n9 u( z; Rrecorders. 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
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be possible to convert these machines for Hi-Fi use, but this would involve replacing most of the
9 l9 L' o/ s' G* f# r( I+ Celectronics and be very expensive.
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( k/ a/ k( L7 T) qCheaper to buy a rather bette
r stereo
IV-S in the first place!
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Tape for the Nagra SN
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I have been amazed at the prices some people have been willing to pay on that wild west auction site for
5 M" l: T7 A( f- g) i2 Uthe little reels of tape for this machine. When I first acquired my example from the BBC naturally I
& `; i+ j5 S; A I, J+ fwanted 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
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'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
4 j4 h" ^7 s" ~8 H" e) c& W r4 uVERY silly money.
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