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
* t$ b7 n( E, R( J9 ?/ T+ N3 Athe transport lock-out 'switch' next to the meter. The cover 'hinge' arrangement differs slightly from later
$ }1 z$ D/ C3 U) rmachines, as does the 'patina' of the anodised finish. A most interesting version, has anyone got another?
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( `4 l7 ~, p, i- ?! o(Apparently yes, I have recently been advised.)
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) d* y% u. P6 S, e7 FClick 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
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beware, 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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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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: c7 W5 v: j: T4 ENagra SNS - half track recording at 1 7/8 and 15/16 i.p.s. - surveillance quality recording in Mono
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3 r4 ~, w2 @+ Z# p+ t$ ZNagra SNST - Stereo recording at 1 7/8 and 15/16 i.p.s. - surveillance quality recording in Stereo
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7 \7 c: M) D! q7 ^1 g! bNagra SNSTR (recent) - Stereo recording at 3 3/4 and 1 7/8 i.p.s. - high quality recording in Stereo
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/ ]7 d, J" k" a0 c! O& _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
: n6 ]& Y6 t0 g2 d/ B: J) `% L; xDSP) 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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the slow speed SNS and the SNST stereo versions are not. Perhaps it might
5 `1 l6 T- Z% t' Zbe possible to convert these machines for Hi-Fi use, but this would involve replacing most of the
( h5 Y8 Z' S# |electronics and be very expensive.
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Cheaper 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
_3 ~" a; @. e6 o' J( N1 Mwanted 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
1 h' o6 @ D4 r# B1 k d'pancakes'. These are the un-flanged bulk reels of tape (about 10" dia) that are automatically wound into
~5 z; z y2 Kthe 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
2 J( N4 L b v6 a* zonto 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
& }$ [& |$ r! D# B+ ^, L6 {VERY silly money.
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