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
* t5 a; [: e) u3 s2 Z. Uthe transport lock-out 'switch' next to the meter. The cover 'hinge' arrangement differs slightly from later
9 I! w% Y V w9 M% R( Amachines, as does the 'patina' of the anodised finish. A most interesting version, has anyone got another?
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0 Y, f/ A% s0 b: l: t( L. i. h(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
2 `' |3 S7 i5 W8 _5 Y6 b obeware, 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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) U8 F3 |* A5 l7 M4 z! ^" JNagra 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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9 W9 y' [+ S6 e- I' a9 aApparently 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
4 b9 R3 j+ i# P% C9 p1 Y0 ]) }therefore be
optimized for speech recording only, and will also
run at low speed for maximum
& A& S) ]- g/ O: }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
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be possible to convert these machines for Hi-Fi use, but this would involve replacing most of the
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electronics and be very expensive.
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9 r2 {# _+ I$ Q1 ICheaper to buy a rather bette
r stereo
IV-S in the first place!
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% i: ?9 d2 w# o# `! X4 j* KTape 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
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wanted to play with it and make some recordings. I knew that the tape was basically re-reeled cassette
& b5 |( n# f( }: e) C" |& r$ E1 rtape so I approached a tape duplication house in the UK and quite easily obtained a few part used
$ Z' _" e4 h$ Q$ f% X; T4 j'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
3 p# r6 L7 @" C. ^things may be slightly different these days, but perhaps worth investigating rather than spending some
0 a( d2 b: f9 b5 g' q: [VERY silly money.
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