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
1 F+ [# z, j/ d8 u; W5 K4 l! W3 s; T+ bthe transport lock-out 'switch' next to the meter. The cover 'hinge' arrangement differs slightly from later
5 E# o8 s) d' Z6 S1 \! Zmachines, 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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) m) o0 {! _6 F# L. v6 `! GClick 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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" X, C* B! J: Z! T% ONagra SNN - full track recording at 3 3/4 and 1 7/8 i.p.s. - high quality recording in Mono
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* l' a1 f8 c4 n6 m1 \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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' ~0 Q9 `# R+ t* a" f8 e' G* TApparently 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
% t# s/ C% A" F( n. frecording 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
" E. H$ B$ b, B. ^be 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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; i' F) M/ ?) n5 RCheaper to buy a rather bette
r stereo
IV-S in the first place!
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p1 I" ]3 N8 NTape 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
& i& h4 W# z8 T4 E8 J9 P5 b, n* jwanted 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
9 J/ p0 o( s8 w; C+ N1 `. B5 o'pancakes'. These are the un-flanged bulk reels of tape (about 10" dia) that are automatically wound into
' f' }/ U5 w, V. C! N5 Dthe 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
. O7 S8 @. M+ _' Z& T D" ]things may be slightly different these days, but perhaps worth investigating rather than spending some
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