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
, ]: h' j% W* o, T" s& {the transport lock-out 'switch' next to the meter. The cover 'hinge' arrangement differs slightly from later
+ h+ N2 E# e' r% Tmachines, 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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" \* e" |0 \; ]. _: J! n0 q+ JClick on either of the above images for more information.
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1 t$ ]& f' B5 p; v+ K* For those who are looking at the stereo versions of this recorder often to be found on 'Eday', do
' m" f; x+ x: E/ {, Sbeware, 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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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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" l9 p2 v. F4 J9 L) V0 R/ j2 YNagra 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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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
$ n5 Q2 }0 p* ]) `/ z" i7 P: zrecorders. 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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% g5 b7 m2 F4 @' 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
3 G6 h _ C9 q( ^. _" Tthe little reels of tape for this machine. When I first acquired my example from the BBC naturally I
4 @0 T& B* W# T/ S6 Lwanted to play with it and make some recordings. I knew that the tape was basically re-reeled cassette
! z+ e1 q w3 { N6 i) f* rtape so I approached a tape duplication house in the UK and quite easily obtained a few part used
) [" M; D6 R: h3 r- {% \'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
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things may be slightly different these days, but perhaps worth investigating rather than spending some
/ x2 l9 A1 D, a8 }) A4 E7 N: ZVERY silly money.
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