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
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the transport lock-out 'switch' next to the meter. The cover 'hinge' arrangement differs slightly from later
7 X1 h$ v+ Q1 _+ t! ?' wmachines, as does the 'patina' of the anodised finish. A most interesting version, has anyone got another?
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, Y' Z/ B$ r: P5 Q(Apparently yes, I have recently been advised.)
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, O* g, f# @; @" s. E0 m; yClick on either of the above images for more information.
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# H& b1 c/ V, y0 x" l* J9 {, }6 H* For those who are looking at the stereo versions of this recorder often to be found on 'Eday', do
4 `& o+ X" @8 H& _8 `* _& [beware, as It is unlikely that these will be the recent versions designed to record high quality music.
& r" b1 y, X& u Q" QThere are now apparently four versions of the Nagra 'SN':
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9 l' M& u( K' u" s* ^; E" tNagra 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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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
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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
1 h, ~9 F2 M* P" G0 a6 G7 Orecording time and not fidelity. Actually Nagra made a special playback loudspeaker system (25100
* [( ?7 A5 l& D0 nDSP) with built in equalization to compensate for the quite limited frequency response of these
# D7 x; v1 {" d, Hrecorders. 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
1 B0 H2 n) H$ l% n3 lelectronics and be very expensive.
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7 L$ |, H2 t6 yCheaper 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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7 e4 O' f% L `. g' v! ^I 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
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wanted 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
7 i4 z% k# {3 }( L'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
6 H1 S) {! w) j. v0 y G7 Vseveral 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
" ?7 b' x, v! v$ |- aVERY silly money.
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