Above is another view of Mr Blackham's unusual Nagra SNN. As far as I can see, apart from not having
3 f1 H9 y' P7 ~' v& }# \! othe 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
- w; |+ Y; C6 z6 umachines, 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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3 ]3 \: B$ O% ?( z; W! [Click on either of the above images for more information.
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6 O2 r) H6 D4 S; Q4 M- W& a* For those who are looking at the stereo versions of this recorder often to be found on 'Eday', do
3 d! X$ u' _, K4 k) tbeware, as It is unlikely that these will be the recent versions designed to record high quality music.
; l( j7 {( J% f1 m7 _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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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 e5 v4 m( X) \* v% ANagra 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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5 y; j; U4 X, \5 X! Y: f& cApparently for covert surveillance use it was preferable to have two separate recording channels to
/ L. x6 f+ \1 X* C4 h3 C- S) l5 Ghave 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
- i& G/ o5 z" p; x, @) O! Xrecording 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
1 e) M- v3 T0 b$ ?. ~be possible to convert these machines for Hi-Fi use, but this would involve replacing most of the
7 X& G1 e) u6 [2 [& i/ E( `electronics and be very expensive.
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1 z# q! t: Z6 ~" ^! l8 N9 NCheaper 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
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the little reels of tape for this machine. When I first acquired my example from the BBC naturally I
: h. _3 f' `* Q5 s3 V# r/ 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
7 P$ D0 T: }* D# [the cassette shells. I then contacted Nagra UK (always helpful) and obtained for around ?5 each
Q9 p% U: P* [) k% Pseveral pairs of empty plastic reels. It then was quite a simple matter to wind tape off the pancake and
1 b, b2 J6 V* b+ uonto the Nagra plastic reel (by using the hand crank on the machine). I did this a few years ago and
+ a6 J X2 U% ythings 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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