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 ?4 I7 L1 [3 q2 U5 A0 o2 ?& Ithe transport lock-out 'switch' next to the meter. The cover 'hinge' arrangement differs slightly from later
8 a* A# a8 P) w( L$ m5 o, N! ?, K1 tmachines, 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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5 w2 j4 a* Y3 A" u5 C! K* 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.
+ O$ `1 r& d9 j$ }' o% ~# C2 cThere are now apparently four versions of the Nagra 'SN':
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6 G7 j1 L) R" s% ?3 i/ G1 N* j2 FNagra SNN - full track recording at 3 3/4 and 1 7/8 i.p.s. - high quality recording in Mono
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: i7 V, H' H& Q1 u) K5 D. @Nagra SNS - half track recording at 1 7/8 and 15/16 i.p.s. - surveillance quality recording in Mono
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% w6 Y4 t+ {1 A! T9 m! x9 {Nagra SNST - Stereo recording at 1 7/8 and 15/16 i.p.s. - surveillance quality recording in Stereo
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: |' Z& @. w4 n; K/ v9 xNagra SNSTR (recent) - Stereo recording at 3 3/4 and 1 7/8 i.p.s. - high quality recording in Stereo
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8 v. W/ P! E j V2 p5 J$ C; mApparently for covert surveillance use it was preferable to have two separate recording channels to
. v5 d/ c3 ~" ?2 B( Xhave 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
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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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truly 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
1 s. F7 I. Q! {* Q5 _! L8 Lelectronics 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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' Y; X0 G4 L2 Z3 i* }- n4 TTape 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
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wanted 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
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'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
: ~0 |3 `( K1 ?& x j' C% F2 eseveral pairs of empty plastic reels. It then was quite a simple matter to wind tape off the pancake and
: i% r9 t3 i7 ?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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