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
+ [) x8 F7 E' R c1 U: C5 Cthe transport lock-out 'switch' next to the meter. The cover 'hinge' arrangement differs slightly from later
7 u( z O8 ?. \1 [- k d" Mmachines, 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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1 [! e0 N3 N) D: @2 w' ]Click on either of the above images for more information.
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& N) A2 k, y4 Z. [( X1 d* 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.
( J% N9 v7 W, b/ O/ fThere 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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( A8 s v4 S' L( W9 v5 [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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( i0 q- Q. p; t. X. l' D) fNagra SNSTR (recent) - Stereo recording at 3 3/4 and 1 7/8 i.p.s. - high quality recording in Stereo
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9 s) [4 D$ [" B G" C3 V/ yApparently for covert surveillance use it was preferable to have two separate recording channels to
; w+ R5 j& z* H& F+ X7 ^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
, H8 U9 ^; @' D0 SDSP) 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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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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8 x$ M" m5 w: i* E9 P+ ACheaper 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
. {, Q7 E9 f& W7 ~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
; s7 O- J; h1 @; i: _the cassette shells. I then contacted Nagra UK (always helpful) and obtained for around ?5 each
6 Y* p2 o+ Z6 eseveral 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
/ { B3 w+ M* J$ P9 ` }things may be slightly different these days, but perhaps worth investigating rather than spending some
. k6 u; q+ K6 Q7 lVERY silly money.
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