Above is another view of Mr Blackham's unusual Nagra SNN. As far as I can see, apart from not having
6 l' O4 P. Q- Q2 P/ @5 j4 _( [8 F7 K3 rthe various anodised legends on the deck plate, also absent are the adjustable AGC threshold knob and
% |6 X; I: ]4 k0 o$ A5 P7 Nthe transport lock-out 'switch' next to the meter. The cover 'hinge' arrangement differs slightly from later
9 `- Z# s8 I: F2 V% bmachines, 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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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
; K6 A) e, z: i9 abeware, 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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# j8 B8 M, a6 lNagra SNS - half track recording at 1 7/8 and 15/16 i.p.s. - surveillance quality recording in Mono
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' e" Y6 ^4 b E9 n, s7 ENagra SNST - Stereo recording at 1 7/8 and 15/16 i.p.s. - surveillance quality recording in Stereo
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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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6 s# a* Y8 b( `: @/ K5 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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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
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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
U$ z: L+ Q9 l* ?be possible to convert these machines for Hi-Fi use, but this would involve replacing most of the
" y3 f7 w4 Y& j# K8 Q* Nelectronics and be very expensive.
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# E( C6 Y5 o, N0 `6 h# i: I5 oCheaper to buy a rather bette
r stereo
IV-S in the first place!
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+ I6 o- I8 n, J* sTape 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
5 `& R; E' L0 jthe little reels of tape for this machine. When I first acquired my example from the BBC naturally I
9 Q) {2 ~( U8 l3 s r( T! Twanted 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
/ `. M. M1 @- a6 ~6 d% E! }6 Tthe cassette shells. I then contacted Nagra UK (always helpful) and obtained for around ?5 each
& P; L, _6 e9 q/ T; 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
( Y2 S0 c9 i* i, H5 m" _ Fthings may be slightly different these days, but perhaps worth investigating rather than spending some
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