This is the NAGRA IV-S (yes they did a 4S before Apple was cool). Its a real reel audio recorder! This particular model is one that RMIT also has in their museum of old media things in Building 9. You might think, looking at it, that it’s the sort of thing you’d find in a studio but not so! This puppy was to be slung on the shoulders of Location Sound Mixers with a strap and carried around for ten straight hours, YIKES! The NAGRA kept existing all the way until the latest one in 2008, the NAGRA VI, which has a big glossy LCD screen which looks a lot like a current Sound Devices or Zoom F8 style recorder from a modern film set. It is interesting following the various models of NAGRA recorders which kind of shows the way in which these huge tape reel recorders have slowly changed to become the audio recorders that we see today. It’s amazing to see not only the size comparison due to how much smaller sound amplifiers have become but also how much smaller media is. I look at the size difference between a Micro SD card and these reels (and these are very small reels) and it really gives you a sense of how far this kind of technology has come. One of the filmmakers I follow on YouTube, Niko Pueringer says that he measures how far technology has come by how much data he can fit in his mouth. Also this recorder only records two channels when a Zoom H6 that fits in your hand can record six simultaneous channels in equal or greater quality.