Above is another view of Mr Blackham's unusual Nagra SNN. As far as I can see, apart from not having
: c' h' _: Z. p, O+ l3 Q8 Y! uthe various anodised legends on the deck plate, also absent are the adjustable AGC threshold knob and
1 P z3 z* M( g& M4 L3 w3 Cthe 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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4 a! ~; C. E. T1 h* _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.
% }0 O: F, e% M6 PThere 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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Nagra SNST - Stereo recording at 1 7/8 and 15/16 i.p.s. - surveillance quality recording in Stereo
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}/ Y5 d1 w% s8 ~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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Apparently for covert surveillance use it was preferable to have two separate recording channels to
. B% D3 U6 S) @2 e e: Thave 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
. P7 E) d3 u# ^7 _5 y; rrecorders. 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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5 t& ?- E+ |4 M6 m4 h ^Cheaper to buy a rather bette
r stereo
IV-S in the first place!
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4 p$ K+ m$ o( h& n" E$ vTape for the Nagra SN
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, B- V7 N' B2 \/ `2 lI 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
7 `3 K4 p) g" r# v5 rwanted to play with it and make some recordings. I knew that the tape was basically re-reeled cassette
- } N( `; Z7 Itape so I approached a tape duplication house in the UK and quite easily obtained a few part used
; {2 S7 P! P+ R9 u: k'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
: d8 c \0 c# o7 f5 T' vthings may be slightly different these days, but perhaps worth investigating rather than spending some
H) g: S1 @" t) iVERY silly money.
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