Above is another view of Mr Blackham's unusual Nagra SNN. As far as I can see, apart from not having
& X) M; I' ]3 a/ Zthe various anodised legends on the deck plate, also absent are the adjustable AGC threshold knob and
: R5 v3 D0 T8 Othe transport lock-out 'switch' next to the meter. The cover 'hinge' arrangement differs slightly from later
. e% o1 |0 `& }. a7 Hmachines, as does the 'patina' of the anodised finish. A most interesting version, has anyone got another?
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5 w) ~- k9 U( K6 |. K(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.
/ B4 J1 t. a7 Y; _# w5 b8 v7 z/ uThere 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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: h$ [/ I5 O$ }7 PNagra SNST - Stereo recording at 1 7/8 and 15/16 i.p.s. - surveillance quality recording in Stereo
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& f3 h2 w6 }; B9 I5 RNagra 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
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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
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DSP) 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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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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Cheaper to buy a rather bette
r stereo
IV-S in the first place!
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9 R3 j$ g6 u4 Y# R1 x, G' q$ YTape 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
1 `, ~- j; g- Y3 L# qwanted 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
& G G g8 C+ B! V0 [the cassette shells. I then contacted Nagra UK (always helpful) and obtained for around ?5 each
5 C2 s' D0 t8 L& ` h4 jseveral pairs of empty plastic reels. It then was quite a simple matter to wind tape off the pancake and
5 Y2 _7 _6 i4 fonto 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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