Above is another view of Mr Blackham's unusual Nagra SNN. As far as I can see, apart from not having
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the various anodised legends on the deck plate, also absent are the adjustable AGC threshold knob and
& b( `$ g" M# G9 P. w- ^" Ethe transport lock-out 'switch' next to the meter. The cover 'hinge' arrangement differs slightly from later
6 M- ~# I! p" A6 jmachines, as does the 'patina' of the anodised finish. A most interesting version, has anyone got another?
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8 L% M8 w: ]" c8 w(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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7 J- D7 x' n+ s9 O* 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.
% y0 Y- x# z' O4 t- ?* P* k$ nThere 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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& B# W2 z$ e1 TNagra 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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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
3 X9 d7 K# Z3 g5 A5 KDSP) 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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the slow speed SNS and the SNST stereo versions are not. Perhaps it might
0 k+ f) I6 c+ ?0 o& g: m6 R: T3 bbe possible to convert these machines for Hi-Fi use, but this would involve replacing most of the
+ Z6 f" C. B: v6 s$ E: |# F5 Aelectronics and be very expensive.
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5 M$ @4 T0 X$ ~& ECheaper 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
3 z/ H+ F. [6 B, I: |% Mthe 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
9 ?1 O* ?( p6 U0 i, m# R# ^1 btape so I approached a tape duplication house in the UK and quite easily obtained a few part used
( C3 S+ |3 _ X* x8 U' j'pancakes'. These are the un-flanged bulk reels of tape (about 10" dia) that are automatically wound into
. G+ i3 h4 N2 u `& L, |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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VERY silly money.
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