Above is another view of Mr Blackham's unusual Nagra SNN. As far as I can see, apart from not having
/ C; ~) I) ]' J* l- athe 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
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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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/ f, v7 i- s U( s/ N8 C(Apparently yes, I have recently been advised.)
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* t! G7 f9 O& TClick 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
q! m6 w8 Z& e7 J5 x) q6 Ebeware, 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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6 p5 ^6 o1 T9 D/ l% g& F GNagra 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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) g9 H! g- J8 A8 k. ]4 BNagra SNSTR (recent) - Stereo recording at 3 3/4 and 1 7/8 i.p.s. - high quality recording in Stereo
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( J0 S; }% j. ^% U& e3 ~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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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
' a9 i6 X+ q/ c# r- x8 UDSP) 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
9 P) s3 {9 A m, T3 O1 u' Q# \electronics 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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9 b- c2 M' F- j# uTape for the Nagra SN
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/ {. H, Y! e3 M& kI have been amazed at the prices some people have been willing to pay on that wild west auction site for
b# L: Y: U6 sthe 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
3 M8 s7 ?- z$ M% k5 ?0 W7 Athe 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
n4 p+ D' t% K$ Ethings may be slightly different these days, but perhaps worth investigating rather than spending some
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