Above is another view of Mr Blackham's unusual Nagra SNN. As far as I can see, apart from not having
8 l! ?( x" Z) |% f/ l8 v0 a8 Othe various anodised legends on the deck plate, also absent are the adjustable AGC threshold knob and
6 P" d; I, R; a' n0 othe transport lock-out 'switch' next to the meter. The cover 'hinge' arrangement differs slightly from later
- r9 Q- I4 z8 |, r4 Smachines, as does the 'patina' of the anodised finish. A most interesting version, has anyone got another?
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, S& m0 m8 M0 V" O, N(Apparently yes, I have recently been advised.)
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0 y; k) G- ^4 aClick on either of the above images for more information.
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7 A4 F. I/ W3 {+ L* 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.
6 F/ A: K7 u* J& E; _1 B* @' yThere 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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8 N I" B8 N a, J5 fApparently for covert surveillance use it was preferable to have two separate recording channels to
V4 a' N( q q6 A6 u* Dhave 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
. |7 Z. A* e. y% n7 _" C$ Krecording time and not fidelity. Actually Nagra made a special playback loudspeaker system (25100
3 i2 f& x, S: ~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
' E/ }2 f0 m3 x* o$ U( Vbe possible to convert these machines for Hi-Fi use, but this would involve replacing most of the
e6 S3 e1 e/ N0 W0 j' zelectronics 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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# T( j c, n. j, `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
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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
: b5 r |5 y* C0 }& Ytape so I approached a tape duplication house in the UK and quite easily obtained a few part used
" l0 i- k' k7 R'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
# E9 }9 } H; d& {& s( |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
# M( N2 d2 S* F! X7 u- QVERY silly money.
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