Above is another view of Mr Blackham's unusual Nagra SNN. As far as I can see, apart from not having
- |9 t8 O: g4 ^7 v/ b8 wthe various anodised legends on the deck plate, also absent are the adjustable AGC threshold knob and
" v! v% v# z2 b3 S1 Ethe 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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(Apparently yes, I have recently been advised.)
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% v6 I, a. ]: x: aClick on either of the above images for more information.
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* 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.
( H- C6 f0 K' q3 }There are now apparently four versions of the Nagra 'SN':
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+ O& S( Z: z+ a- v! Y% Y- u% gNagra 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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B9 y( G# s- P0 m8 r* HNagra SNST - Stereo recording at 1 7/8 and 15/16 i.p.s. - surveillance quality recording in Stereo
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% ] x+ G" t4 uNagra SNSTR (recent) - Stereo recording at 3 3/4 and 1 7/8 i.p.s. - high quality recording in Stereo
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R# u+ j! H& ^ j2 B0 HApparently 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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optimized for speech recording only, and will also
run at low speed for maximum
; t4 O! q. g9 r/ r! [recording time and not fidelity. Actually Nagra made a special playback loudspeaker system (25100
0 _1 W+ H. i# O+ u- qDSP) 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
6 l& H. L: ]/ m$ ~4 r) U( ^be possible to convert these machines for Hi-Fi use, but this would involve replacing most of the
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electronics and be very expensive.
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: t6 o. R$ D( |2 x: k1 _$ h S2 o( ICheaper to buy a rather bette
r stereo
IV-S in the first place!
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( h4 |% m: A9 _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
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wanted to play with it and make some recordings. I knew that the tape was basically re-reeled cassette
+ M/ c9 i: ]$ k* N* s5 p, htape 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
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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
/ `* Q h |9 T- _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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