Above is another view of Mr Blackham's unusual Nagra SNN. As far as I can see, apart from not having
7 S" [, z5 k Ythe various anodised legends on the deck plate, also absent are the adjustable AGC threshold knob and
: k; {' G. X. [" o5 Cthe transport lock-out 'switch' next to the meter. The cover 'hinge' arrangement differs slightly from later
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machines, as does the 'patina' of the anodised finish. A most interesting version, has anyone got another?
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; M- _' A2 S: v" g8 S* e7 X9 i(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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9 F+ } T4 r4 ^; y* 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.
+ n. y& Z* K6 q. ^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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: A! B: T9 v$ w( ]. _' V# FNagra SNST - Stereo recording at 1 7/8 and 15/16 i.p.s. - surveillance quality recording in Stereo
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, a' a) R- |1 {7 YNagra SNSTR (recent) - Stereo recording at 3 3/4 and 1 7/8 i.p.s. - high quality recording in Stereo
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) C* s2 e5 Z0 ?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
8 M" H3 t5 H" d- j+ E fDSP) 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
. K; j( T& J3 f. y5 v% Q' ?/ [: wtruly Hi-Fi recording, but
the slow speed SNS and the SNST stereo versions are not. Perhaps it might
7 l+ M1 Q" J. U" \8 k T# ?be possible to convert these machines for Hi-Fi use, but this would involve replacing most of the
: q: E t; N6 l. h( B9 D/ m* |electronics and be very expensive.
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+ @/ x( S! L8 @% a7 E) dCheaper to buy a rather bette
r stereo
IV-S in the first place!
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& |* _, X) o3 }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
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the little reels of tape for this machine. When I first acquired my example from the BBC naturally I
4 Y) ?6 y& q* {$ c( K0 J% 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
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'pancakes'. These are the un-flanged bulk reels of tape (about 10" dia) that are automatically wound into
% W# N# ~% s( ?% ?! 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
& i) B! x' j6 ~- Ronto the Nagra plastic reel (by using the hand crank on the machine). I did this a few years ago and
; N: w7 I- _7 x7 ithings may be slightly different these days, but perhaps worth investigating rather than spending some
' S' E; d4 w& @# D: BVERY silly money.
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