Laying down sound: early recording inventions from wire to tape

Valdemar Poulsen was a test engineer at the Copenhagen telephone company. In 1898 he designed the first device for the electromagnetic recording of sound—the "Telegraphone."

After discovering magnetic recording in 1898, Poulsen worked on improving the telegraphone at the Mix & Genest company. Poulsen demonstrated his device in June 1900 at the Paris World Fair. Mix & Genest organized events where they demonstrated this device to invited participants.

In order to improve the volume and intelligibility of the magnetic recording, Poulsen experimented in May 1900 with different materials at Mix & Genest. In June 1900, Mix & Genest demonstrated this device with a wide steel band at the Paris World Fair in front of press representatives.

At the Paris World Fair, Poulsen's wire-tone recorders, "Telegraphones," were a sensation. All of today's magnetic recording methods, including hard drives and the magnetic strips on credit cards, are only possible thanks to Poulsen's invention.

The American Telegraphone Company was founded in the US. It made millions of dollars through stock sales. Thousands of investors wanted to benefit from the success of the "next phonograph."

But then the American Telegraphone Company got into financial difficulties and in 1908, a factory had to close. Only a few hundred Telegraphones were eventually sold in 1912 and the company went bankrupt in 1920.

The Telegraphone could record telephone conversations, while the mechanical Phonograph could not. Another advantage of the wire recording devices was their long recording time of half an hour.

Peder Oluf Pedersen, a close associate of Valdemar Poulsen, patented the steel plate in 1901 as a "Magnetizable Body." This magnetic disk is the basis of today's computer hard drives. This recorder from 1908 has a magnetic disk diameter of 12 inches.

It was not until 1912 that the American Telegraphone Company could sell the first Telegraphone. The chemical company DuPont was the only company to establish a dictation center, in which letters were dictated over the phone. In 1920 the Telegraphone Company went bankrupt. After that, the Record-O-Phone company sold the devices.

The big coils of the Vox wire recording device held 17,700 feet of wire (5,400 m). That was enough for 30 minutes, because for good sound reproduction the steel wire had to be run through magnets at a rate of 10 feet per second (3 m/s).

However, commercial success was limited. Screenwriter Thea von Harbou and writer Hans Dominik used this method.

In 1929 the textophone was developed by Semi Joseph Begun. The steel wire ran in cassettes, which made handling easier. According to advertising, possible applications were dictations, recording of telephone calls, and "acoustic protocols."

In the Third Reich, the Gestapo and security services were customers.

Pfleumer sold the rights to his magnetic tape to AEG general electricity company. The German chemical company BASF developed the first plastic tape in 1935. The AEG Magnetophon K4 was in 1939 the first mass-produced tape recorder. With the ability to check the quality while recording and an AC bias, it was the first time recording was of studio quality.

In the early 1950s, the tape recorder also conquered the domestic sphere. The devices were easy to use and delivered good music quality. Portable suitcase-sized devices corresponded with the economic prosperity of the time. But the devices were expensive: brand new, this device cost 398 DM—almost a full month's wages.

In the 1950s, the compact tape recorder boomed and by the 1960s, a quarter of all households had a tape recorder. Another revolution in listening habits had begun.

In 1963, the Philips EL 3300 was the first recorder for a new recording medium: the compact cassette.

In the 1970s the inexpensive and robust cassette triumphed: young people could now easily record hit songs from the radio.

In 1998, portable MP3 players marked the end of the compact cassette. The 5 GB hard drive featured in the 2001 iPod held thousands of songs. The iPod brought the MP3 player back from the dark corners of online software piracy by connecting it to the iTunes music store. With iTunes, you could legally acquire digital music for the first time and listen to it on multiple players.