Nagra Kudelski 4S. Swiss made.
Nagra IV-S – Stereo Nagra, recording two-track stereo. It had dual level pots, limiters, and equalizer presets. It was introduced in 1971. It originally employed a 14 kHz sync signal that is not compatible with the earlier Neopilot sync. This signal is recorded employing FM modulation on a third or center track that could simultaneously be employed as an additional but lower quality “cue” track.
Nagra is a brand of portable audio recorders produced from 1951 in Switzerland. Beginning in 1997 a range of high-end equipment aimed at the audiophile community was introduced, and Nagra expanded the company’s product lines into new markets.
Originally a product of the Kudelski Group, Nagra recorders are now developed, produced and sold by independently owned company Audio Technology Switzerland S.A., based in Romanel-sur-Lausanne.
The machines were initially designed by Polish inventor Stefan Kudelski, and his company won numerous technical awards for their precision and reliability. Nagra means “[it] will record” in Polish, Kudelski’s native language.
Nagra-brand tape recorders were the de facto standard sound recording systems for motion picture and (non-video) single-camera television production from the 1960s until the 1990s.
In 1997, Nagra launched the PL-P, a vacuum tube phono preamplifier, beginning a range of high-end audio equipment. The range is intended for audiophile consumers as opposed to exclusively the professional equipment manufactured hitherto. Since then, the range has grown steadily and have added tubes and mosfet amplifiers, CD players, other pre-amps and DACs. Now divided into 2 Classic and HD lines, Nagra’s products are acclaimed by many journalists as being among the world’s best sound reproduction electronics.