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
! H! U1 @! o" w8 J. r/ j+ u4 ]the 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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$ o: [2 ]0 i0 i! q& K(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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5 A/ E, u* f& e l! T5 R; a1 _* 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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6 `& Y/ q, k+ G- {5 YNagra SNS - half track recording at 1 7/8 and 15/16 i.p.s. - surveillance quality recording in Mono
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& v9 h: i- C& I; c' {Nagra SNST - Stereo recording at 1 7/8 and 15/16 i.p.s. - surveillance quality recording in Stereo
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5 G9 N/ c* i% y' q) ]) FNagra 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
+ O, g7 L) R4 uhave 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
. ~ p: t- M) e/ _recording time and not fidelity. Actually Nagra made a special playback loudspeaker system (25100
) \+ N2 u) F# ]* c5 IDSP) 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
# M- F. h( b+ a/ n$ qbe 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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Tape for the Nagra SN
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. m0 g. ~) A% M8 ZI 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
8 j1 R7 e: {& Q; V* jwanted 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
" ?, v. r+ r' z _) P4 ^; |'pancakes'. These are the un-flanged bulk reels of tape (about 10" dia) that are automatically wound into
2 ^% ` N1 t. F8 q* @( gthe cassette shells. I then contacted Nagra UK (always helpful) and obtained for around ?5 each
2 z0 ~& ?2 o5 Eseveral 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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