Above is another view of Mr Blackham's unusual Nagra SNN. As far as I can see, apart from not having
( m$ H6 Y; d7 lthe various anodised legends on the deck plate, also absent are the adjustable AGC threshold knob and
6 H8 V' Z" K7 |1 P" l( K0 Tthe transport lock-out 'switch' next to the meter. The cover 'hinge' arrangement differs slightly from later
& h- r" T4 t2 H! w- Q( j$ zmachines, as does the 'patina' of the anodised finish. A most interesting version, has anyone got another?
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' F e1 j& L. Z2 J5 q" Y- c(Apparently yes, I have recently been advised.)
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, N; L5 m( }4 Q9 H# rClick 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.
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There are now apparently four versions of the Nagra 'SN':
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- o2 d) i2 i% D6 {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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8 j7 _( J j1 r" P* nNagra SNS - half track recording at 1 7/8 and 15/16 i.p.s. - surveillance quality recording in Mono
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@; y' e& @5 D! V5 vNagra SNST - Stereo recording at 1 7/8 and 15/16 i.p.s. - surveillance quality recording in Stereo
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$ a3 f7 y; J" \( O$ V* l9 kNagra 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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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
& E4 w T: |5 BDSP) with built in equalization to compensate for the quite limited frequency response of these
5 r9 k( {4 U# {7 ~* O2 n) precorders. A standard mono Nagra SNN running at 3 and 3/4, like the ones on this page are capable of
# N; b* d% ?2 b5 m: btruly Hi-Fi recording, but
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
: o2 `( n' y; ?* {4 [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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+ A+ P! K8 M' K7 q6 }5 eTape 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
# z. a) m# g0 }# jwanted to play with it and make some recordings. I knew that the tape was basically re-reeled cassette
" C% L7 F4 [; f1 g+ m2 N% Z7 D& r5 dtape 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
; [& l8 @2 L; k ethe 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
, G6 U6 T$ b5 |) uonto 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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