Above is another view of Mr Blackham's unusual Nagra SNN. As far as I can see, apart from not having
8 I* d: n) r2 N6 X; |+ ~0 u9 kthe various anodised legends on the deck plate, also absent are the adjustable AGC threshold knob and
, E) _4 g! ~: qthe 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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' V+ u) r# b, t, V# }(Apparently yes, I have recently been advised.)
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6 k' C# L7 S8 v8 h8 i6 }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
$ v5 |( {! D% ~# r' abeware, 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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0 E3 {2 a& r. V& p0 fNagra SNN - full track recording at 3 3/4 and 1 7/8 i.p.s. - high quality recording in Mono
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5 p; K2 g; O q5 n% ^( Q9 y4 W5 INagra SNS - half track recording at 1 7/8 and 15/16 i.p.s. - surveillance quality recording in Mono
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1 k! M' v7 P, @8 w B T/ jNagra 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
4 J( o' R, d A- ]0 A) Xhave 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
" o9 ?1 M$ q& Z' d# M& o0 TDSP) 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
6 h! L( N2 Y1 Y( q9 U( W; \2 D0 ~truly Hi-Fi recording, but
the slow speed SNS and the SNST stereo versions are not. Perhaps it might
) Y& D+ x2 ~5 Z. {8 gbe 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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9 _2 y: ~* z0 mCheaper to buy a rather bette
r stereo
IV-S in the first place!
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! ^- S" F# D! c8 p i; [! u- l3 ]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
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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
, a4 C" O6 a: U+ pthe cassette shells. I then contacted Nagra UK (always helpful) and obtained for around ?5 each
: W+ f, V1 ~% i' }/ k+ ^7 Sseveral 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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VERY silly money.
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