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
' x _ F A' othe transport lock-out 'switch' next to the meter. The cover 'hinge' arrangement differs slightly from later
; l' _! I7 ^4 zmachines, as does the 'patina' of the anodised finish. A most interesting version, has anyone got another?
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0 F9 m: b3 o9 ?+ ?(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
, B8 Z# f9 J. y+ P7 D9 V8 \0 Ibeware, as It is unlikely that these will be the recent versions designed to record high quality music.
! F3 F0 h, M: k2 C& v4 NThere 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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8 F3 w$ L/ j& Y0 a$ x7 U4 gNagra SNST - Stereo recording at 1 7/8 and 15/16 i.p.s. - surveillance quality recording in Stereo
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" `6 F. d& M8 T9 j: 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
6 r+ t5 l) ~$ ~, }+ e9 uhave some chance of capturing a muffled or distant conversations. So these older stereo machines will
3 C1 Z! I% f) a% ] Z8 [. htherefore 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
; n& ]0 Z! M) Etruly 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
1 A8 o# G/ i) l3 Z( helectronics and be very expensive.
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$ ~, B9 P: `# H: z ACheaper 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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I have been amazed at the prices some people have been willing to pay on that wild west auction site for
! e0 @6 Y4 @, q* y" o9 ~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
0 b1 m/ S1 t2 j4 p q4 Ntape so I approached a tape duplication house in the UK and quite easily obtained a few part used
( l1 R" y, n' P% \'pancakes'. These are the un-flanged bulk reels of tape (about 10" dia) that are automatically wound into
. T/ O/ M& |- C+ p; {9 dthe cassette shells. I then contacted Nagra UK (always helpful) and obtained for around ?5 each
4 ?7 v+ E. \0 ?6 U- lseveral pairs of empty plastic reels. It then was quite a simple matter to wind tape off the pancake and
2 C8 ?+ I, K: P/ Qonto 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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VERY silly money.
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