Nagra SNN

More like an excercise in watchmaking than an audio recorder, the increasingly collectable Nagra SN is
yet another delightfully tactile object from this famous Swiss company.

Mr Tim Blackham's very early and un-legeneded example is shown above on the Left, and my own later
full track mono* version is shown lower Right. These truly pocket sized and light weight reel-to-reel
tape recorders were in actual fact true professional sound recorders in every respect, and were a very far
cry from almost every other similar sized tape recorder. While various 'toy' miniature tape recorders of
the 'Misson Impossible type' produced results varying from excruciating to just plain bad, this little
Nagra gave real Hi-Fi quality. Actually I sometimes use mine into an HH AM8/12 amplifier and a
Tannoy Monitor Gold in a Lancaster cabinet with pretty impressive results!

With built-in 50 Volt capacitor microphone powering and a proper capstan servo system, the Nagra SNN
was quite capable of making studio broadcast quality recordings at the relatively low speed of 3 3/4
inches per second on 1/8 inch wide tape. (Which was actually re-reeled Compact Cassette tape - see
below.)

Perhaps more famous for its 'security applications', this 'spy Nagra' was often used as a concealed film
location recorder before the arrival of reliable radio microphones. Simple in use; you just plugged the
microphone or line input lead into the machine to put it into record mode. It didn't have fast forward, and
rewind was done by hand by turning a miniature fold out 'starting handle'. But this rather quaint feature
was perfectly usable and saved the batteries.

Above is another view of Mr Blackham's unusual Nagra SNN. As far as I can see, apart from not having
the various anodised legends on the deck plate, also absent are the adjustable AGC threshold knob and
the transport lock-out 'switch' next to the meter. The cover 'hinge' arrangement differs slightly from later
machines, as does the 'patina' of the anodised finish. A most interesting version, has anyone got another?

(Apparently yes, I have recently been advised.)

Click on either of the above images for more information.

* For those who are looking at the stereo versions of this recorder often to be found on 'Eday', do
beware, as It is unlikely that these will be the recent versions designed to record high quality music.
There are now apparently four versions of the Nagra 'SN':

Nagra SNN - full track recording at 3 3/4 and 1 7/8 i.p.s. - high quality recording in Mono

Nagra SNS - half track recording at 1 7/8 and 15/16 i.p.s. - surveillance quality recording in Mono

Nagra SNST - Stereo recording at 1 7/8 and 15/16 i.p.s. - surveillance quality recording in Stereo

Nagra SNSTR (recent) - Stereo recording at 3 3/4 and 1 7/8 i.p.s. - high quality recording in Stereo

Apparently for covert surveillance use it was preferable to have two separate recording channels to
have some chance of capturing a muffled or distant conversations. So these older stereo machines will
therefore be optimized for speech recording only, and will also run at low speed for maximum
recording time and not fidelity. Actually Nagra made a special playback loudspeaker system (25100
DSP) with built in equalization to compensate for the quite limited frequency response of these
recorders. A standard mono Nagra SNN running at 3 and 3/4, like the ones on this page are capable of
truly Hi-Fi recording, but the slow speed SNS and the SNST stereo versions are not. Perhaps it might
be possible to convert these machines for Hi-Fi use, but this would involve replacing most of the
electronics and be very expensive.

Cheaper to buy a rather better stereo IV-S in the first place!

Tape for the Nagra SN

I have been amazed at the prices some people have been willing to pay on that wild west auction site for
the little reels of tape for this machine. When I first acquired my example from the BBC naturally I
wanted to play with it and make some recordings. I knew that the tape was basically re-reeled cassette
tape so I approached a tape duplication house in the UK and quite easily obtained a few part used
'pancakes'. These are the un-flanged bulk reels of tape (about 10" dia) that are automatically wound into
the cassette shells. I then contacted Nagra UK (always helpful) and obtained for around Ł15 each
several pairs of empty plastic reels. It then was quite a simple matter to wind tape off the pancake and
onto the Nagra plastic reel (by using the hand crank on the machine). I did this a few years ago and
things may be slightly different these days, but perhaps worth investigating rather than spending some
VERY silly money.