Above is another view of Mr Blackham's unusual Nagra SNN. As far as I can see, apart from not having
0 o0 U( @! Y! S y0 `the various anodised legends on the deck plate, also absent are the adjustable AGC threshold knob and
% W; S. K# g6 b( ?% d h9 Athe 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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; w/ o1 i) M/ v& ~7 R' J; ~7 s: Q1 p(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.
4 M/ Z) o2 U9 qThere 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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7 L+ ?# v1 j; h' B' ]Nagra SNS - half track recording at 1 7/8 and 15/16 i.p.s. - surveillance quality recording in Mono
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1 L3 P, \0 b. j5 E; i7 c* ANagra 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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" y. v* o5 S4 O/ qApparently 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
: V2 ^, K) L+ R# ?) p6 ctherefore 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
) o1 L: L" W) @) m' `/ \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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truly Hi-Fi recording, but
the slow speed SNS and the SNST stereo versions are not. Perhaps it might
, {# a0 ^1 a7 J% Ebe 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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Tape for the Nagra SN
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^7 r% Z& w0 {* zI 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
, Q, e" H# g3 Rtape so I approached a tape duplication house in the UK and quite easily obtained a few part used
! Z' n( k5 Q6 S5 R/ s% J'pancakes'. These are the un-flanged bulk reels of tape (about 10" dia) that are automatically wound into
r) E; c& H2 F7 P5 d4 A. O0 Lthe 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
' f7 u$ o7 U1 W& Y9 G. X; _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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