Above is another view of Mr Blackham's unusual Nagra SNN. As far as I can see, apart from not having
4 W+ p' a$ c; [! u1 v- }* ]the various anodised legends on the deck plate, also absent are the adjustable AGC threshold knob and
( c% Z" A5 F4 y( h4 `4 ithe 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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8 r8 ~& r7 H6 a" l# n) a6 c(Apparently yes, I have recently been advised.)
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" F+ b! T. o3 V% l) |Click on either of the above images for more information.
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- R: I2 G% z) O+ l$ N* 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.
, b6 [' h' I. S. M9 i) @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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j5 r4 k( G* k+ @! d5 BNagra 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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0 m6 ~/ D) G! i* b6 e6 VApparently for covert surveillance use it was preferable to have two separate recording channels to
8 V; T% z z) C' L" I0 Fhave 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
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DSP) with built in equalization to compensate for the quite limited frequency response of these
4 T g2 B5 J8 q Urecorders. 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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electronics and be very expensive.
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. W$ Y& x$ w: b! I. Z' }Cheaper to buy a rather bette
r stereo
IV-S in the first place!
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9 D- n( q2 t. _) x2 P7 V1 O) sTape for the Nagra SN
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% [/ Q+ @0 e" e- Q( V( ^- V3 pI 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
7 M D) K2 ~0 c. S' uwanted to play with it and make some recordings. I knew that the tape was basically re-reeled cassette
* u5 a9 H h2 ^0 J/ n- otape 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
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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
; j5 l! R k# @( t. o# a/ m" athings may be slightly different these days, but perhaps worth investigating rather than spending some
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