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
' i/ u) g. j# L" l) B' dthe transport lock-out 'switch' next to the meter. The cover 'hinge' arrangement differs slightly from later
. l$ G/ |1 L+ e8 N# Nmachines, 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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( B- t4 j- ]) [2 {8 \& WClick on either of the above images for more information.
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7 _: `* J5 o* K; [* P; V! T3 b' Y* For those who are looking at the stereo versions of this recorder often to be found on 'Eday', do
b6 D" B) `, y0 l! vbeware, as It is unlikely that these will be the recent versions designed to record high quality music.
. {# d# O$ |% BThere are now apparently four versions of the Nagra 'SN':
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" _. O8 W% T- O+ w& c5 TNagra 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 V( b) e' E: f+ K. p9 @+ ~7 X# S. zNagra SNS - half track recording at 1 7/8 and 15/16 i.p.s. - surveillance quality recording in Mono
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& B8 l# }; Q* q4 ~- p9 UNagra 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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1 @7 J j6 S$ d5 s4 YApparently 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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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
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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
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be possible to convert these machines for Hi-Fi use, but this would involve replacing most of the
6 K; X8 S, C" u$ Belectronics and be very expensive.
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' q; K2 C1 ?& g0 J5 ]% O1 M8 r+ y6 OCheaper to buy a rather bette
r stereo
IV-S in the first place!
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; l) L9 l' C' }) {$ l9 QTape 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
9 Z L9 R( T: w5 R }1 j& bthe little reels of tape for this machine. When I first acquired my example from the BBC naturally I
: l0 n! `' f/ y1 D' Swanted 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
1 P4 x$ F4 @4 ^- O9 O0 D! M'pancakes'. These are the un-flanged bulk reels of tape (about 10" dia) that are automatically wound into
" D* t4 F+ }! B+ K' \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
9 [; o% L8 S. Y' o& P! W* O" m; ^VERY silly money.
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