Above is another view of Mr Blackham's unusual Nagra SNN. As far as I can see, apart from not having
& v4 ^* u" g; c& F0 W/ v9 m( B. f4 _the various anodised legends on the deck plate, also absent are the adjustable AGC threshold knob and
! O' q# C; V2 G; ?; L- d* \7 gthe 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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4 m) l0 s- n& S7 Z* z0 e9 d+ \(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
$ l I/ b3 X! x9 A6 B, ~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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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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% J) V& j7 L7 W5 k. l9 m7 pNagra 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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optimized for speech recording only, and will also
run at low speed for maximum
, M2 \, {- i }- M7 precording time and not fidelity. Actually Nagra made a special playback loudspeaker system (25100
! ?/ P) p% W3 W0 b- z6 L* n/ d" dDSP) with built in equalization to compensate for the quite limited frequency response of these
6 Q o5 y# m* h9 @0 erecorders. A standard mono Nagra SNN running at 3 and 3/4, like the ones on this page are capable of
: w$ [; f8 [7 q" X3 etruly Hi-Fi recording, but
the slow speed SNS and the SNST stereo versions are not. Perhaps it might
8 k% X% m, R+ t% P) Fbe 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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" Y1 R5 S3 ` A( x" F6 a/ sCheaper 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
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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
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tape so I approached a tape duplication house in the UK and quite easily obtained a few part used
- c' I- I( `9 F% u1 x/ ['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
8 G7 G/ `; C* @' A& Xseveral pairs of empty plastic reels. It then was quite a simple matter to wind tape off the pancake and
# ?" \* w% t9 ~) S' X' ~onto the Nagra plastic reel (by using the hand crank on the machine). I did this a few years ago and
! O7 p4 ?4 n; t% r- _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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