|
Magnetophon from a German radio station in World War II. Courtesy Wikipedia.
Magnetophon was the brand or model name of the pioneering reel-to-reel tape recorder developed by engineers of the German electronics company AEG in the 1930s, based on the magnetic tape invention by Fritz Pfleumer. AEG created the world's first practical tape recorder, the K1, first demonstrated in Germany in 1935 at the Berlin Radio Show.
AEG engineers Hans Joachim von Braun and Dr. Walter Weber accidentally discovered the technique of AC tape bias in which the addition of an inaudible high-frequency tone resulted in a striking improvement in sound quality. The discovery was made when a Magnetophone producing recordings of extraordinary quality was sent 'for repair'. The machine proved to have an oscillating DC bias amplifier. Magnetic media is inherently non-linear, but AC bias was a technique whereby the tape's magnetisation was left in a state proportional to the instantaneous audio electrical signal. The Magnetophon became a high fidelity recording system that outperformed gramophone recording (which was the 78 rpm system at this time).
| 