Above is another view of Mr Blackham's unusual Nagra SNN. As far as I can see, apart from not having
" e! T, \/ J& o3 R$ S. u `. athe various anodised legends on the deck plate, also absent are the adjustable AGC threshold knob and
0 T1 F- b- s/ }! F/ j6 m4 w1 Tthe transport lock-out 'switch' next to the meter. The cover 'hinge' arrangement differs slightly from later
/ r2 G& `7 \7 q1 Q/ t$ ]/ amachines, as does the 'patina' of the anodised finish. A most interesting version, has anyone got another?
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(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.
6 M* ^# K- u- _) N# hThere are now apparently four versions of the Nagra 'SN':
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& S. p2 @4 b' D/ ?: r3 p7 f& eNagra SNN - full track recording at 3 3/4 and 1 7/8 i.p.s. - high quality recording in Mono
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4 |- f: w- B7 U( w6 O) L- }Nagra SNS - half track recording at 1 7/8 and 15/16 i.p.s. - surveillance quality recording in Mono
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$ y7 q6 v8 r+ A. d5 e1 f: _Nagra SNST - Stereo recording at 1 7/8 and 15/16 i.p.s. - surveillance quality recording in Stereo
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t% C/ {2 I2 ENagra SNSTR (recent) - Stereo recording at 3 3/4 and 1 7/8 i.p.s. - high quality recording in Stereo
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6 r5 H$ W6 Z+ l6 u! @( j+ jApparently for covert surveillance use it was preferable to have two separate recording channels to
7 q) Y. V) Y" @7 G& o* rhave 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
8 s; {; Q2 B5 B6 [; \recorders. A standard mono Nagra SNN running at 3 and 3/4, like the ones on this page are capable of
/ w$ Z) m" a+ r9 N1 S& i4 t; n# Ptruly Hi-Fi recording, but
the slow speed SNS and the SNST stereo versions are not. Perhaps it might
+ O n+ Q& Z0 o3 `- [0 cbe possible to convert these machines for Hi-Fi use, but this would involve replacing most of the
- }6 U2 p, |, y3 Selectronics and be very expensive.
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6 n' T- ^, g8 GCheaper 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
- p- \8 s" d0 C2 j/ {: m Dthe little reels of tape for this machine. When I first acquired my example from the BBC naturally I
6 v, M' p2 @' {6 I T) ^4 l4 o9 ?wanted to play with it and make some recordings. I knew that the tape was basically re-reeled cassette
+ d, M$ F7 `0 g' j: H8 s ?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
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the cassette shells. I then contacted Nagra UK (always helpful) and obtained for around ?5 each
& z# w8 f3 K6 d6 G4 Yseveral 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
7 X7 y' N( n: ]7 n& {things may be slightly different these days, but perhaps worth investigating rather than spending some
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