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
$ K2 l* V' G5 |; L/ g9 {the transport lock-out 'switch' next to the meter. The cover 'hinge' arrangement differs slightly from later
/ ^# g& ~2 b- ~( Z/ @. A' nmachines, as does the 'patina' of the anodised finish. A most interesting version, has anyone got another?
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; r4 c. N0 `. F! Y; R) c(Apparently yes, I have recently been advised.)
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4 k( e- ]; x. k9 w; {' ^Click on either of the above images for more information.
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$ c' A) E7 G: L$ i* o& Z5 C9 ?* 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.
# J3 D. D; Q+ v, @5 FThere are now apparently four versions of the Nagra 'SN':
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$ |9 @7 _: Z$ l- O) a& ~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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& ^1 o1 C7 G0 }6 `Nagra SNS - half track recording at 1 7/8 and 15/16 i.p.s. - surveillance quality recording in Mono
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2 ?7 {+ I- }* Q8 t' S9 I7 jNagra SNST - Stereo recording at 1 7/8 and 15/16 i.p.s. - surveillance quality recording in Stereo
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6 E# T4 u: m8 F- H4 dNagra 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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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
8 P2 d1 j# z0 J6 |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
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be possible to convert these machines for Hi-Fi use, but this would involve replacing most of the
) N! d# B% b( {+ p; R5 zelectronics and be very expensive.
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1 d; i0 e0 v4 [9 ^Cheaper to buy a rather bette
r stereo
IV-S in the first place!
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) K o B3 P/ G+ b7 J$ }Tape 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
2 }2 \6 H, V5 o% O8 x+ [* E hthe little reels of tape for this machine. When I first acquired my example from the BBC naturally I
; E% u& x4 x6 u2 ]% ewanted 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
$ [/ `, m: D! m6 T [( O* k$ e'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
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things may be slightly different these days, but perhaps worth investigating rather than spending some
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