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
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the transport lock-out 'switch' next to the meter. The cover 'hinge' arrangement differs slightly from later
2 i4 ^& s0 L6 s3 fmachines, 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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* 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.
; S! Y9 J/ a1 o1 [: E1 g5 t7 d) t gThere are now apparently four versions of the Nagra 'SN':
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% M' P) M# t! O- f" jNagra SNN - full track recording at 3 3/4 and 1 7/8 i.p.s. - high quality recording in Mono
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0 S+ {5 t4 Y) _Nagra SNS - half track recording at 1 7/8 and 15/16 i.p.s. - surveillance quality recording in Mono
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& y; A% i R5 H2 T1 t, KNagra SNST - Stereo recording at 1 7/8 and 15/16 i.p.s. - surveillance quality recording in Stereo
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. ], D* e! g0 Q& s7 _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
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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
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DSP) with built in equalization to compensate for the quite limited frequency response of these
' ~# E$ r' c& ]7 x" g% crecorders. A standard mono Nagra SNN running at 3 and 3/4, like the ones on this page are capable of
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the slow speed SNS and the SNST stereo versions are not. Perhaps it might
1 P; H4 L8 ~! _; ^6 f9 zbe possible to convert these machines for Hi-Fi use, but this would involve replacing most of the
9 d, a' K3 k; M5 K* h3 nelectronics 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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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
/ s% {) f; S2 D) u0 x# g6 bthe 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
- z0 E! X/ p1 k2 W+ p4 K/ j; ~'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
! j( l/ G9 @# M, s0 V1 sseveral 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
- d& }5 @9 h1 X% F7 Qthings may be slightly different these days, but perhaps worth investigating rather than spending some
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