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
! o' b' @, n# c( r0 Z8 w" Athe transport lock-out 'switch' next to the meter. The cover 'hinge' arrangement differs slightly from later
! b. E0 J/ i& Amachines, as does the 'patina' of the anodised finish. A most interesting version, has anyone got another?
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) V$ H& n6 ^8 Y(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.
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There are now apparently four versions of the Nagra 'SN':
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, F, V) R% F, ?3 L oNagra 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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Nagra SNST - Stereo recording at 1 7/8 and 15/16 i.p.s. - surveillance quality recording in Stereo
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" b3 Z1 Y$ I- P$ eNagra 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
" ?7 d( C8 o) L3 o7 ~. fhave some chance of capturing a muffled or distant conversations. So these older stereo machines will
* j2 |" K1 U I. g6 U# Xtherefore be
optimized for speech recording only, and will also
run at low speed for maximum
( N$ z; H C+ F9 R3 Hrecording time and not fidelity. Actually Nagra made a special playback loudspeaker system (25100
$ s; m- V* [( {2 x2 P# FDSP) with built in equalization to compensate for the quite limited frequency response of these
' m+ j5 D) A' ]* b# @3 r# irecorders. 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
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electronics 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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8 n q; b% w/ O9 O' eTape 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
* n: @( ^ A4 ~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
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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
/ G) A* X0 U. @1 Q% E7 M( Uthe cassette shells. I then contacted Nagra UK (always helpful) and obtained for around ?5 each
- A) G) ~0 C0 \) i- aseveral 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$ j" n/ r) ?, N/ a6 ?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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