Above is another view of Mr Blackham's unusual Nagra SNN. As far as I can see, apart from not having
* p' F b! ~5 H" K8 [: ?the various anodised legends on the deck plate, also absent are the adjustable AGC threshold knob and
; H; R) ]7 z2 ?1 j c; b8 rthe 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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2 l& i4 R, H2 o. h, c+ T! T7 }2 k(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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( K% e/ x" g' s9 q/ g0 N4 q* 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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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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" u; K& F: T, C7 y, B4 ZNagra 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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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
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recording time and not fidelity. Actually Nagra made a special playback loudspeaker system (25100
' h8 y! f3 m' n5 o# nDSP) with built in equalization to compensate for the quite limited frequency response of these
2 |! h* L5 u- @+ b( l8 f0 g$ F! n2 G3 `5 Trecorders. A standard mono Nagra SNN running at 3 and 3/4, like the ones on this page are capable of
. j; }7 Z! E1 L- Q0 jtruly Hi-Fi recording, but
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
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electronics and be very expensive.
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/ B$ ?# k$ B5 L# r& QCheaper to buy a rather bette
r stereo
IV-S in the first place!
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R# b. }$ w4 b0 |# p CTape for the Nagra SN
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3 G( g1 m4 n9 l8 P+ V: RI 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
* e& o5 o1 E" n) E/ |& ywanted 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
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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
; p( k, x1 ~1 i2 A/ \# ]: l, Oseveral 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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