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
. f1 P) C1 a6 I9 R' y. r; Wthe 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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(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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3 P- y" {( d: A8 K* For those who are looking at the stereo versions of this recorder often to be found on 'Eday', do
$ T" J" I) Q7 K; U9 \3 q3 abeware, 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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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
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recording time and not fidelity. Actually Nagra made a special playback loudspeaker system (25100
3 f0 V |: r y3 A/ m: @DSP) with built in equalization to compensate for the quite limited frequency response of these
$ g( I* b: s6 e W1 C# v& `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
' g7 Z+ ]) i; o$ @" mbe possible to convert these machines for Hi-Fi use, but this would involve replacing most of the
- L) @( q2 k7 r* m# z# i2 Yelectronics 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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/ {; y( W* I8 }( R9 C& Q0 OTape for the Nagra SN
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- e! m( {* I. H4 U7 vI 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
& C; e m4 e: m3 z1 o7 lwanted 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
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several pairs of empty plastic reels. It then was quite a simple matter to wind tape off the pancake and
, a1 c6 U C# z$ x. b( c4 Qonto the Nagra plastic reel (by using the hand crank on the machine). I did this a few years ago and
' |; b% ^/ X% _* }1 Rthings may be slightly different these days, but perhaps worth investigating rather than spending some
+ W# F, C8 u" h5 LVERY silly money.
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