Above is another view of Mr Blackham's unusual Nagra SNN. As far as I can see, apart from not having
. e0 z+ w7 C) ^8 ]7 ~# Othe various anodised legends on the deck plate, also absent are the adjustable AGC threshold knob and
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the transport lock-out 'switch' next to the meter. The cover 'hinge' arrangement differs slightly from later
1 J. [# C4 S% d3 S# i, _: Emachines, as does the 'patina' of the anodised finish. A most interesting version, has anyone got another?
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! F3 v4 k; ]" t- u4 j6 d7 g% G(Apparently yes, I have recently been advised.)
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0 k6 f4 t, T8 e. u, ?9 uClick on either of the above images for more information.
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, k- |1 F% s1 D3 e; |2 \* 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.
6 T b; J9 `/ T3 ^. WThere 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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/ r+ y0 I4 M$ v$ Y% l) eNagra 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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& m& ^1 L2 q8 w2 a5 H- JNagra 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
1 ^" R1 c: a! L4 N {) lhave 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
* A2 w' w5 k- X8 i. Z4 G' I; Urecording time and not fidelity. Actually Nagra made a special playback loudspeaker system (25100
5 c1 Z; r' x1 @% l3 _* D$ I" pDSP) 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
" Q7 }1 ~' a! G5 kelectronics and be very expensive.
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5 V1 U! |% z, _, a2 p, f: A6 }7 FCheaper to buy a rather bette
r stereo
IV-S in the first place!
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( w2 k# [1 p4 J7 M7 sTape 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
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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
! U$ a7 q' ^( H- Iseveral 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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