portable reel to reel??

[kdgh]

True about running it trough the circuit, but you won't get the saturation of the tape itself in that case!

[tone-def]

You can put a playback head after a recording head, that is how a tape echo works.

As far as realtime playback goes, it is possible if the unit it set up that way, but I doubt the Nagra works like that. However, you can run audio through its circuits and use it as a sort of preamp.

i don't think Nagra machines work in that way. there main use was to record sound on film sets and foley/audio post studios. they were made to be pretty clean sounding so if you want something dirty it's probably not the best choice. if your a mastering engineer it's a good investment.