Above is another view of Mr Blackham's unusual Nagra SNN. As far as I can see, apart from not having
- ]2 W u/ K$ b4 R" Tthe various anodised legends on the deck plate, also absent are the adjustable AGC threshold knob and
+ h6 P$ {+ A$ u7 D: zthe transport lock-out 'switch' next to the meter. The cover 'hinge' arrangement differs slightly from later
. ^' W" [0 m3 p: Lmachines, 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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& H w. a) v9 Z. n# M* 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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* l$ t; B) t3 S4 U4 T# ?+ {1 pNagra SNS - half track recording at 1 7/8 and 15/16 i.p.s. - surveillance quality recording in Mono
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: V- M( g& X& E& I2 aNagra 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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" c" Y- S+ T$ @! ?/ bApparently 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
, I) ?* y3 x8 I. @, Y/ V" e9 \' ptherefore be
optimized for speech recording only, and will also
run at low speed for maximum
8 H8 N3 Y9 l, Srecording 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
2 I8 _, I7 E0 [' Vbe possible to convert these machines for Hi-Fi use, but this would involve replacing most of the
# i8 s" ?3 s5 S1 x$ ^, S! Zelectronics and be very expensive.
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! b1 E6 Y: [7 S% s3 XCheaper to buy a rather bette
r stereo
IV-S in the first place!
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, O$ E7 U6 W# E6 H) @: T( U2 WTape for the Nagra SN
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7 r8 H" x- t- r. QI 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
1 i1 O. v1 F& Q A9 I2 atape 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
) L8 e: I$ U0 R& sthe 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
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