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
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the transport lock-out 'switch' next to the meter. The cover 'hinge' arrangement differs slightly from later
% \& |- S2 [0 i5 }6 Z* d4 @1 V, gmachines, 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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$ M3 \$ ?0 f7 h3 D5 K7 PClick on either of the above images for more information.
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2 h0 L6 {' Q; D& l& o8 A* For those who are looking at the stereo versions of this recorder often to be found on 'Eday', do
. W+ Y: c" r; t* S. A- V' G% mbeware, as It is unlikely that these will be the recent versions designed to record high quality music.
/ b1 M# V. g$ ]- lThere 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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6 Q7 A# U; j' S: {, m8 l5 U& [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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2 o6 B3 s e3 A! H/ R; [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
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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
2 a1 {; d* B* t: L! W9 ?be possible to convert these machines for Hi-Fi use, but this would involve replacing most of the
& ^* a1 t7 f6 z. g- o# V' u. delectronics 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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% b! t0 V7 S% HTape for the Nagra SN
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. A6 F* l: P, f' |1 @+ m4 m: kI have been amazed at the prices some people have been willing to pay on that wild west auction site for
: o' `8 P# Q5 u3 z7 R. w" |the little reels of tape for this machine. When I first acquired my example from the BBC naturally I
7 c; c7 W; E' o. S1 D, n- Bwanted to play with it and make some recordings. I knew that the tape was basically re-reeled cassette
1 _# ^# c I2 h6 C" W+ c- W* P; Y ]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
c# C; j) x jseveral 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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