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
8 o! m, z; m( uthe transport lock-out 'switch' next to the meter. The cover 'hinge' arrangement differs slightly from later
' f9 n) K( W4 U4 v5 T- pmachines, as does the 'patina' of the anodised finish. A most interesting version, has anyone got another?
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3 u+ [( i% K' g* D(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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- x1 O3 a+ b* Y) ~3 i2 E2 e* 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.
% {) O0 G& Z! k& I9 F. t" ?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
* A( Q& t, a$ X8 H0 u! P& q3 W Q( Hhave some chance of capturing a muffled or distant conversations. So these older stereo machines will
5 y/ W0 V: `& r# j+ \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
# R* t4 S6 b& y# GDSP) with built in equalization to compensate for the quite limited frequency response of these
, n& e. N# z0 S; P7 Mrecorders. 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
: s/ } n6 Z( C) Bbe possible to convert these machines for Hi-Fi use, but this would involve replacing most of the
9 k R9 t9 ^) r& h6 v1 L Celectronics and be very expensive.
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2 Q) k! |& s: P4 CCheaper 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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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
" m8 R6 v; v+ g8 jwanted to play with it and make some recordings. I knew that the tape was basically re-reeled cassette
' a `8 R% M- itape 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
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things may be slightly different these days, but perhaps worth investigating rather than spending some
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