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
5 x% B! R8 g' Ithe transport lock-out 'switch' next to the meter. The cover 'hinge' arrangement differs slightly from later
$ Q% U4 Q4 Q7 umachines, as does the 'patina' of the anodised finish. A most interesting version, has anyone got another?
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9 ~& i! ~( E* E) _2 A* m(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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: G) N- y1 S( W+ a( g5 E* 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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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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Nagra SNS - half track recording at 1 7/8 and 15/16 i.p.s. - surveillance quality recording in Mono
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3 S! @1 y9 d! k U5 YNagra 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 b l% r" ^+ PApparently for covert surveillance use it was preferable to have two separate recording channels to
5 i4 i, I% [" H- [' n4 T" Vhave 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
( @$ D0 w" N8 K3 E0 V$ oDSP) with built in equalization to compensate for the quite limited frequency response of these
& I' [& D# u4 N- f9 Frecorders. 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
3 x9 Q2 I$ p6 R5 D0 a: u- {$ Q* Lelectronics and be very expensive.
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8 t4 K- |" _! j, }+ ^! e- L" ACheaper to buy a rather bette
r stereo
IV-S in the first place!
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+ k6 {- j5 j0 xTape for the Nagra SN
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9 g4 r* ]" ]. CI 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
- O- F4 v! Q+ g! E- D( i8 Ywanted 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 d C8 i% ~/ g& a& ~'pancakes'. These are the un-flanged bulk reels of tape (about 10" dia) that are automatically wound into
1 Y5 A# }# b8 X) m0 l, x; A" xthe 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
- Y' \7 _- U% Nonto 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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