I have been following this thread and have been surprised not to find any analysis of the sound achieveable with the Nagra Lino. I have also not been able to locate online any reviews of the machine, although it has been out there long enough to expect some of these. After all, I don't care if all Nagra does is sprinkle pixie dust on a pencil sharpener, if the results are good.
Last fall I lost battery power to my Grace V3 during a piano recital. At the end oif the piece during which the battery died I re-routed the mic cables into the mic-in ports of my Sonosax MiniR82. Luckily a friend in the audience was stealthing the recital with a Sony D50 using internal mics, although his tape was flatter and more tiring to listen to than mine (phew!) I managed to match levels and patch the missing section (about 5 minutes) into my tape. No one (including recordists who were trained pianists who had played the piece involved) could locate the patch or even come very close.
Since then I have 1) switched to using a Sound Devices 633, with triple power back-up (internal AAs and two 7.2V camcorder snap-on batteries); and 2) used a shaver recorder with its internal mics to make a backup. I had hoped to use my old Sony D1, but it had a dead channel and Sony wouldn't service it any longer. So I bought a Nagra Lino. I have used the backup only once, when, still learning the 633, I hit the record button the wrong way and missed 5 seconds of program while I figured out what was happening. The patch from the Lino was also seamless. When the D1 was repaired (third party) I did a comparison, but unfortunately did not keep the files (and I have regularly tossed my backups when not needed, as thankfully has been the case). My memory of the sound I got then was
#1 and winner, big expensive equipment (how embarrassing if not!)
#2 Nagra Lino on mic stand
#3 Sony D1 ditto
#4 Audience tape using Sony D50 and DPA4060s, about 3-4X the distance as the others, in unknown but clearly sub-optimal configuration.
I hope to do another comparison of the Lino with the D1 in the next few weeks. In the meantime, I have three clips you can use to compare the Lino to better gear. My setup was a Josephson C700S with X and Y capsules into Sound Devices MP1s and line-in to the 633 (W went mic-in, but was not used in the clip, which is a Blumlein stereo mix). The mic was centered and about 6-7 feet up. A few inches below it was the Lino. A friend brought his own stand and a Speiden SF-12 stereo ribbon mic (precursor of the Royer SF-12), it was about 2 feet above my C700S and ran Blumlein configuration into mic-ins of the 633. Anyone who wants to hear this PM me and I'll send a link to 16/44.1 files (recorded originally 24/96) of the three clips (about 9 minutes each). Then PM me for which is which, I'm interested also in your guesses, though here the Lino is pretty obviously not as good (to me).
Jeff
