Nagra is the copyrighted name referring to any of the series of mostly battery-operated portable professional audio recorders produced by Kudelski SA, based in Cheseaux-sur-Lausanne, Switzerland. The machines were initially designed by Polish inventor Stefan Kudelski, and his company won numerous technical awards for their precision and reliability. Nagra-brand tape recorders were the de-facto standard sound recording systems for motion picture and single-camera television production from the 1960s until the 1990s. Their physical appearance, with the single transport selector and large reel-to-reel tape deck are still the stereotypical image most people have of a professional tape recorder.
