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
& p' a9 f# h" F1 L# D. t) lthe transport lock-out 'switch' next to the meter. The cover 'hinge' arrangement differs slightly from later
. ~, q9 X+ t1 q. v% M% Rmachines, 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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* 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.
4 J7 `+ _* d: i/ eThere 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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n4 Z' p; O+ X2 c! P3 p+ }4 }9 p1 JNagra SNS - half track recording at 1 7/8 and 15/16 i.p.s. - surveillance quality recording in Mono
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% P4 c- t }' q' _Nagra SNST - Stereo recording at 1 7/8 and 15/16 i.p.s. - surveillance quality recording in Stereo
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; h3 X# x. `' \1 ]. e. dNagra SNSTR (recent) - Stereo recording at 3 3/4 and 1 7/8 i.p.s. - high quality recording in Stereo
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1 l+ I& C4 B" z- l2 D$ hApparently for covert surveillance use it was preferable to have two separate recording channels to
T. k. Y/ K0 Y7 L, r6 ?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
9 v0 G3 ^0 I6 c- s0 w" FDSP) 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
' n# o* K* X9 ~8 D1 S- Q& Y5 c! Obe 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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7 F! L4 O$ o' 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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- ~, ^7 k% S- g% 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
9 u! B; v0 W1 X1 q9 Iwanted to play with it and make some recordings. I knew that the tape was basically re-reeled cassette
: n x' l3 q1 Ztape 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
~/ T$ E( b ^+ {several pairs of empty plastic reels. It then was quite a simple matter to wind tape off the pancake and
/ o) J3 c3 M! p* h# F' Gonto 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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