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
% D' ?' u" I. ~6 M# zthe 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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: `- S. n4 L; {+ Y(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.
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There are now apparently four versions of the Nagra 'SN':
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- H+ |& J' x7 ~9 ~; A1 S! @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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; ~. \/ c! W5 oNagra 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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' a4 w. E9 Q& TApparently for covert surveillance use it was preferable to have two separate recording channels to
9 m. R) |3 U! \+ t: \" P) Uhave 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
+ ]! z v! H' MDSP) with built in equalization to compensate for the quite limited frequency response of these
% T$ T. u, [' \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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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
8 N, ?; {5 R: W/ j+ \+ Z: xelectronics 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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3 k2 V+ D6 Q! R3 d- GTape 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( i$ y8 i. z1 J: k$ V& 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
0 x9 X/ t0 J3 K0 \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
# K* d# E. I* S9 u! j4 conto the Nagra plastic reel (by using the hand crank on the machine). I did this a few years ago and
+ L9 l9 a/ u$ M% }things may be slightly different these days, but perhaps worth investigating rather than spending some
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