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
: _3 P8 w( J5 ~. o( Qthe transport lock-out 'switch' next to the meter. The cover 'hinge' arrangement differs slightly from later
9 ]$ p# d! _; @; G) O, p4 G) umachines, 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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9 E5 S" E5 I$ {/ lClick 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
' T/ Y, G2 v9 Q7 s. c, mbeware, 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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$ x' c4 Y4 P/ f8 b6 l) C+ n& NNagra SNN - full track recording at 3 3/4 and 1 7/8 i.p.s. - high quality recording in Mono
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: J9 p& t8 A" e+ O( H4 _Nagra SNS - half track recording at 1 7/8 and 15/16 i.p.s. - surveillance quality recording in Mono
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! j1 V- B& Q; ^" C# FNagra 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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therefore be
optimized for speech recording only, and will also
run at low speed for maximum
2 u$ `! n- ]0 m% b/ ^8 Zrecording 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
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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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truly 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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4 A6 y, q9 K% q1 @Cheaper to buy a rather bette
r stereo
IV-S in the first place!
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% P$ N9 I% W1 D2 E/ f* TTape 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
1 ~, V: R5 |+ l# {% E3 Hwanted to play with it and make some recordings. I knew that the tape was basically re-reeled cassette
' k% \0 K4 s6 ^9 g Otape so I approached a tape duplication house in the UK and quite easily obtained a few part used
: O! T- x: A/ t8 x5 \# M'pancakes'. These are the un-flanged bulk reels of tape (about 10" dia) that are automatically wound into
g2 _* Y+ g5 J( s( dthe cassette shells. I then contacted Nagra UK (always helpful) and obtained for around ?5 each
$ P- H- W5 C& ^( N+ A* nseveral 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
) Z$ q4 o/ g2 I# N8 z4 Ithings may be slightly different these days, but perhaps worth investigating rather than spending some
' l+ {5 D% W+ f9 U, H9 i- FVERY silly money.
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