Above is another view of Mr Blackham's unusual Nagra SNN. As far as I can see, apart from not having
! ^4 P% F' t- g! }* @the various anodised legends on the deck plate, also absent are the adjustable AGC threshold knob and
; K% ^( U3 r! T. a$ vthe 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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(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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. Q/ N& w. e& F. h9 J" P2 ]* For those who are looking at the stereo versions of this recorder often to be found on 'Eday', do
% K' k4 m* X/ ebeware, as It is unlikely that these will be the recent versions designed to record high quality music.
6 {6 M4 R, u& [' ^There are now apparently four versions of the Nagra 'SN':
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- l2 a* q) `7 @+ Q; h* e: _# ANagra 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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Nagra 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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f+ J$ I( j/ W P* IApparently for covert surveillance use it was preferable to have two separate recording channels to
5 n$ [# y& W5 y' j' ~. Lhave 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
' u$ U$ i; [4 C1 ^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
2 H" T: o0 q" Nbe 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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% ?4 C; m$ j, ?# Q0 dTape 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
' j6 I1 W3 D" ?/ {% Z5 [( o* U/ Gwanted 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
8 W5 S/ t; \4 z; P+ z3 V2 R'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
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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
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things may be slightly different these days, but perhaps worth investigating rather than spending some
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