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
1 |% x c5 K/ W tthe transport lock-out 'switch' next to the meter. The cover 'hinge' arrangement differs slightly from later
4 o7 T. t# q- Q# i( Lmachines, as does the 'patina' of the anodised finish. A most interesting version, has anyone got another?
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& c8 E) b- M; e0 {8 T(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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* 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.
1 i) O0 ]5 q( w* A, r$ `+ l/ rThere 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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: w5 I5 H$ d: ~* pNagra SNST - Stereo recording at 1 7/8 and 15/16 i.p.s. - surveillance quality recording in Stereo
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/ s8 I2 q. Q& Q" t$ Q5 C7 u& z$ XNagra SNSTR (recent) - Stereo recording at 3 3/4 and 1 7/8 i.p.s. - high quality recording in Stereo
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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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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
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be possible to convert these machines for Hi-Fi use, but this would involve replacing most of the
8 Z, M+ ^# B) O$ Yelectronics and be very expensive.
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* ?! n: [* M9 |7 |9 XCheaper to buy a rather bette
r stereo
IV-S in the first place!
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7 c; E+ H5 l9 C, |# I& |; k- y) iTape 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
( T+ o& K7 H; y- Awanted 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
: I2 |& L6 d- I! V' ^3 G. n'pancakes'. These are the un-flanged bulk reels of tape (about 10" dia) that are automatically wound into
: p0 `/ v; n/ v. B: |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
: k2 G0 d& c7 H% @% p( ethings may be slightly different these days, but perhaps worth investigating rather than spending some
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