Above is another view of Mr Blackham's unusual Nagra SNN. As far as I can see, apart from not having
0 D' O. A3 l, S# Bthe various anodised legends on the deck plate, also absent are the adjustable AGC threshold knob and
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the transport lock-out 'switch' next to the meter. The cover 'hinge' arrangement differs slightly from later
" w/ E$ D* f. u7 zmachines, 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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Click on either of the above images for more information.
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4 E; C! ?0 ]+ Q( ~* K* For those who are looking at the stereo versions of this recorder often to be found on 'Eday', do
* R/ W. Z5 [/ d; a6 Z1 wbeware, as It is unlikely that these will be the recent versions designed to record high quality music.
5 n$ w$ s# }/ ?, ~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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1 Z( s2 ]# z8 L! qNagra 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
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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
* `0 `9 ?5 E1 @4 I& ], k, mDSP) with built in equalization to compensate for the quite limited frequency response of these
7 t a) A) `$ r# `1 arecorders. 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
( K1 q+ Q- L4 F/ xbe 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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Cheaper to buy a rather bette
r stereo
IV-S in the first place!
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# k$ ~/ u: B0 _/ \/ g# }Tape for the Nagra SN
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) ^1 o8 r1 ?6 W) \3 {8 ^ JI 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
! d7 x; Q0 U U& {: F5 t8 iwanted to play with it and make some recordings. I knew that the tape was basically re-reeled cassette
/ x! {$ ?+ ^& |/ W# r: ~tape so I approached a tape duplication house in the UK and quite easily obtained a few part used
. R+ Q, Q) s8 ~# s8 ]9 ?+ L" y'pancakes'. These are the un-flanged bulk reels of tape (about 10" dia) that are automatically wound into
7 U+ z8 P* U3 b4 H: l4 |, {! M. g" 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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VERY silly money.
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