The history of the creation of the tape recorder. Invention of the tape recorder

Date of writing: 11.10.2023

Reading time: 34 minutes

Tape recorders. The history of the creation of the tape recorder.

Tape recorders.

Record player is an electromechanical device designed for recording (converting acoustic vibrations into electromagnetic ones and fixing them on a medium) and acoustic playback of signals previously recorded on magnetic media.

Materials with magnetic properties are used as media in tape recorders: magnetic wire, magnetic tape, magnetic drums, disks, etc.

History of the tape recorder.

The principle of magnetic recording of sound signals and storing them on a medium was proposed in 1888 by Oberlein Smith. Smith proposed using a silk thread with steel veins as a magnetic sound carrier, but he didn’t go further than the idea.

The first working device using the principle of magnetic recording on a medium was made by Danish engineer Waldemar Poulsen in 1895. He used steel wire as a carrier. The inventor called the device itself a “telegraph”.

Poulsen Telegraph, 1895.

In 1925, Kurt Stille introduced an electromagnetic device that recorded speech on a magnetic wire. Subsequently, devices of his design, using a thin steel tape as a carrier, were produced under the Marconi-Stille brand, and were used at the BBC from 1935 to 1950.

Tape recorder "Marconi-Stille", 1932.

In 1925, a “flexible celluloid tape coated with steel filings (for example, using wood glue)” was patented in the USSR, but the invention was not developed.

In 1927, Fritz Pfleimer patented magnetic tape (first on paper, then on polymer).

In the 1920s, Schuller proposed the classic design of a ring magnetic head, which was a ring magnetic core with a winding on one side and a gap on the other. When recording, a recording current is supplied to the winding, causing a magnetic field to emerge in the gap, which magnetizes the magnetic tape in accordance with the change in the signal. When reading, on the contrary, the tape, closing the magnetic flux through the gap to the core, induces an EMF in the winding.

In 1934-1935, BASF began serial production of magnetic tape based on carbonyl iron or diacetate-based magnetite.

In 1935, AEG released the first commercial tape recorder called Magnetophon K1.

AEG-Telefunken "Magnetophon K1", 1935.

The word Magnetophon itself has long been a trademark of AEG-Telefunken, although it soon became a common noun in a number of languages, including Russian.

After the end of World War II, AEG-Telefunken tape recorders were exported from Germany to the USSR and the USA, where a few years later (in the USA - in 1947) similar devices were built.

The desire to miniaturize household tape recorders and improve their ease of use led to the appearance on the market, starting in the 1950s, of tape recorders using cassette systems.

By the second half of the 1960s, the compact cassette developed by Philips became the de facto standard for cassette recorders.

In the 1980s and 1990s, compact cassette tape recorders virtually displaced reel-to-reel systems from the consumer market.

Experiments on magnetic video recording began in the early 1950s, with the first commercial video recorder appearing in 1956.

Types of tape recorders.

Reel-to-reel tape recorders.

In reel-to-reel tape recorders, the carrier used is a magnetic tape wound on plastic or metal reels (in everyday life the name “reel” was also used) or on cores without cheeks (to prevent the tape from falling off, tape recorders designed for cores have disks at the feeder and receiver nodes). "plates", there are also collapsible coils with removable cheeks).

Due to the wide tape and its high speed, reel-to-reel tape recorders can provide very high quality recording and playback, higher than the quality of mechanical recordings, CDs and compact cassettes.

Standard tape speeds in household reel-to-reel tape recorders are 4.76, 9.53 and 19.05 cm/s (some high-end tape recorders used speeds of 38.1 cm/s); in studio tape recorders, respectively - 9.53 19.05, 38.1 and 76.2 cm/s. Slow speeds of 2.38 and 4.76 cm/s were considered “dictaphone” (speed 2.38 cm/s was rare, mainly in typhlotechnical devices and recorders).

In cinematography, for synchronous sound recording, a speed of 45.6 cm/s could be used (the speed of 35 mm film), and in special equipment a speed of 28.0 cm/s was also found. All high-quality recording capabilities are realized at high speeds, 19.05 cm/s and higher. A speed of 9.53 cm/s was considered the minimum acceptable for recording music and was the main (and often the only) speed in inexpensive devices.

Standard speeds for tape recorders were adopted in the mid-1950s, before which they varied from company to company and recordings were inconsistent.

Reel-to-reel tape recorders were produced in a variety of classes - from bulky stationary studio devices designed to obtain uncompromising sound quality, to pocket “notebooks” of the most primitive design.

The main advantage of reel-to-reel tape recorders compared to cassette machines, which have become widespread since the 1960s, is the ability to obtain maximum quality recording and playback.

The relatively large width of the recording tracks in reel-to-reel tape recorders allows a stronger signal to be removed from the tape, and this improves the signal-to-noise ratio during playback.

The high speed of the tape allows you to expand the frequency range. At high speed it is easier to ensure its constancy.

When designing a tape mechanism for a reel-to-reel tape recorder, the designer can freely choose the layout, build the tape movement path in accordance with the tasks, introduce additional stabilization and control devices into it, install as many heads as desired, etc.

Technological innovations that were forced to appear with the development of cassette tape recorders (new types of tapes and heads, noise suppressors, etc.) have also found application in reel-to-reel systems, further increasing their characteristics.

The disadvantage of reel-to-reel tape recorders was the relative inconvenience of handling the tape: you can change the reel on the tape recorder only with two hands, the tape must first be wound to the end, etc. That is why, with the advent of cassette systems, portable reel-to-reel tape recorders almost disappeared.

Multi-track (with 8 or more tracks) multi-channel reel-to-reel tape recorders were actively used as studio recorders in the 1960s-1990s.

In the household sector, reel-to-reel tape recorders were practically replaced by cassette models by the mid-1980s - for the average consumer, compactness and ease of use turned out to be more important than sound quality.

Cassette recorders.

Since the early 1950s, tape recorder designers have been looking for ways to miniaturize and simplify the handling of magnetic tape. The proposed solutions generally boiled down to two options: either two reels of tape were combined in one cassette body, or one core with a roll of tape glued into a ring was placed in the cassette.

In 1950, the New York-based Mohawk Business Machines Company released its Midget Recorder, introducing it as "the world's first pocket tape recorder." The ring tape of this tape recorder was placed in a metal cassette.

The tape cassettes Dictet (USA, 1957, for a portable voice recorder), Saba (Germany, 1958, for a Sabamobil tape recorder), RCA Sound Tape Cartridge (USA, 1958), Fidelipac (with ring tape, USA, 1959) appeared on the consumer market. None of these early systems were widely used.

Truly mass-produced cassette recorders appeared in the early 1960s.

In 1963, Philips released the compact cassette. It became the main format of tape cassettes throughout the world for several decades.

In 1964, a consortium of American firms introduced the Stereo 8 cassette with a looped reel of tape and 8-track recording. They were popular in the US until the early 1980s.

Other competing systems, for example, DC International from Grundig (1965), Elcaset from Sony, microcassette from Olympus, either could not compete with the compact cassette, or occupied rather narrow niches of special applications (for example, microcassette - in miniature voice recorders and telephone answering machines).

Initially, cassettes used magnetic tapes with a working layer of gamma iron oxide (Fe2O3, Type I), as in reel-to-reel tape recorders. At a relatively low speed (4.76 cm/s) and a small thickness of the working layer, these tapes produced a high level of intrinsic noise, a small dynamic range (up to 48 dB) and a fairly narrow frequency range (up to 12 kHz).

More expensive chromium dioxide-based tapes (CrO2, Type II) are superior in the dynamic and frequency range of the recorded signal, but require other frequency correction and bias parameters.

The best quality is provided by Metal (Type IV) tapes with a working layer of metal powder, not their oxides. But these tapes had their significant drawbacks and were discontinued in the early 2000s.

Multilayer films (“ferrochrome”, Type III), proposed in the 1970s, quickly fell out of use.

Depending on the type of tape, the parameters of the bias current are set during recording, and the frequency compensation of high frequencies is set during playback.

A distinctive feature of cassette recorders is increased noise when playing a recorded soundtrack. This is due to two factors.

Firstly, the low (compared to reel-to-reel tape recorders) tape pulling speed and small track width lead to a low signal level (about 0.15...0.25 mV) generated by the magnetic field in the tape recorder's playback head. Signals of this level turn out to be comparable to the intrinsic noise of the transistor in the input circuit (this problem was solved in two ways: the creation of specialized reproducing heads with high inductance and, as a consequence, with an increased output signal level (up to 0.45 mV) and the development of ultra-low noise amplifiers with parallel turning on transistors at the input. As a result, the best models of cassette tape recorders have their own noise at the level of -62 ... -65 dB).

Secondly, the inhomogeneous structure of the magnetic layer and the roughness of its surface leads to an increased noise level of the tape itself (-52...-54 dB for conventional Type I tapes). Again, due to the relatively low tape speed, the spectrum of these noises falls within the operating frequency range of the tape recorder and becomes very noticeable.

To suppress noise in cassette recorders, various noise reduction systems began to be used. The earliest and simplest of them - dynamic (DNL and the like) - use the fact that in quiet sections of a musical phonogram the proportion of high-frequency components is small. When playing weak signals, the dynamic noise suppressor automatically reduces the gain in the high frequency region (above 5...6 kHz), where the main tape noise is located. This correction has little effect on the perception of a musical recording, and with a strong signal, tape noise is not so noticeable.

To expand the dynamic range upward (primarily in the high audio frequency range), the Dolby HX Pro dynamic bias system is used, first used by Bang and Olufsen in 1982. During the recording process, this system automatically maintains the optimal bias level in accordance with changes in the recording signal. Tapes recorded with Dolby HX can be played on tape recorders that do not have this device, but the increased level of high frequency recording may overload their playback channel.

Multi-cassette tape recorders.

In addition to its small size and ease of handling, the tape cassette made it possible to create devices with automatic cassette changing. Such tape recorders were produced by Philips, other companies and Mitsubishi in the 1970s and 1980s, but they were not particularly popular. But tape recorders with two tape drive mechanisms with the ability to re-record and continuously play, and special installations with several CVLs for duplicating cassettes, have become widespread.

Radio tape recorders.

The most popular type of cassette recorders have become radio tape recorders - a combination of a tape recorder and a radio with the ability to be powered by batteries. They were produced in all sorts of formats, from pocket-sized microcassettes to large, powerful stereo systems (“boomboxes” and “ghettoblasters”), sometimes in combination with a television and, later, a CD player.

The first cassette recorder was released by Philips in 1966. Reel-to-reel radios appeared even earlier, in the 1950s.

Studio tape recorders.

Studio tape recorders are divided into four types depending on the tape supply: cartridges, video cassettes (audio only, ADAT), compact cassettes and open reels.

Digital tape recorders.

A natural development of magnetic tape recording technology was the use of the digital recording method.

Tape recorders that work with digital recordings are abbreviated as DAT (Digital Audio Tape) or DASH (Digital Audio Stationary Head).

DAT tape recorders record a digitized audio signal on tape (the standard provides for recording two audio channels) with different sampling rates (currently the standard is the presence of frequencies of 32, 44.1 and 48 kHz). At a sampling frequency of 44.1 kHz with a bit depth of 16 bits, studio master recordings are made to prepare an Audio CD. The recording format is usually machine-specific and depends on the functional potential of the device (some models have the ability to automatically mark up recordings, quickly search and simple linear editing on one tape).

Initially, the DAT format was addressed to household consumers as a replacement for cassette recorders. However, the high quality of the audio signal quickly paved the way for them into the field of professional sound recording. This was also facilitated by the relative cheapness of the new format compared to analog master tape recorders.

Currently, DAT tape recorders are gradually falling out of use in the field of sound recording due to insufficient mechanical reliability and safety of recordings.

DASH digital tape recorders were originally developed exclusively for the professional market. This is a development by Sony.

The DASH standard provides for recording on regular magnetic tape in reels. This multi-track recording format allows you to record from 1 to 48 audio tracks simultaneously.

Despite the development of computer sound recording technologies, DASH tape recorders are still used to this day in large recording studios (Phoenix, Abbey Road, etc.), since their electroacoustic and operational characteristics meet the highest requirements.

In the 21st century, tape recorders were replaced from mass use by new digital computer technologies!

Nowadays tape recorders are rather a rarity!

Record player. History of the creation of tape recorders.

The history of the tape recorder began in Denmark. It was there that on December 10, 1898, Copenhagen Telephone Company engineer Waldemar Poulsen patented the telegraph - a device for magnetic voice recording on steel wire. Moreover, at first the Dane had no idea whether his invention was necessary: Poulsen just wanted to play a trick on his friend and scare him with the recorded echo. However, luck and the effect produced gave the engineer the idea that the telegraph could also be used in practice.

Danish engineer Waldemar Poulsen - the founder of magnetic recording

The inventor in his work relied on the idea of magnetic sound recording, expressed 10 years earlier by the American engineer Oberlin Smith. He proposed using a silk thread with steel veins as a sound carrier, but Smith didn’t go further than the idea. Poulsen replaced the silk thread with steel wire, and the device started working! The Poulsen telegraph model, created in 1898, was still quite imperfect. The inventor spirally wound steel wire in one layer onto a thick rotating cylinder, which made the device look like a wire rheostat and determined the bulkiness of the invention. At the same time, 100 meters of piano wire with a diameter of 1 millimeter was enough for only 45 seconds of recording (the drawing speed was 2.2 meters per second).

Poulsen Telegraph - first model 1898

The discovery of electromagnetic recording was revolutionary, but at that time a lot of shortcomings prevented its widespread implementation. The main disadvantages were the very weak sound, which could only be listened to with headphones, and the extremely inconvenient sound carrier. After all, to record 40 minutes of sound, as many as six kilometers of steel wire were required! Nevertheless, the invention was very promising - at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1900, the Poulsen telegraph received the Grand Prix. During the demonstration, Poulsen recorded several words spoken by the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph, which became the very first magnetic recording that has survived to this day. This thirty-second recording, despite its terrible quality, is still sometimes used in historical radio broadcasts.
Improving his apparatus, Poulsen replaced the wire with a thin steel strip (3 mm wide), placing it on reels. This somewhat improved the sound quality and reduced the size of the sound carrier, making the telegraph look similar to its future descendants - reel-to-reel tape recorders. In addition, Poulsen also patented recording on a steel disk - this idea is now used in computer hard drives!

Poulsen Telegraph 1910 - improved model with steel tape as a carrier

Poulsen's telegraph worked as follows: a steel strip passed between the poles of a small electromagnet, the coil of which was connected to the telephone. Current pulses excited by the sounds of speech into the telephone changed the strength of the electromagnet. He, in turn, acted unevenly on the steel tape, magnetizing it according to changes in the sound current. Then, when the tape was passed between the poles of the electromagnet, it excited magnetism in the core of the electromagnet. Thanks to this, vibrations occurred in the telephone membrane, reproducing the recorded words. One such steel tape could be used to play a recording many times. If desired, the recording could be erased - to do this, the tape had to be passed between the poles of a strong electromagnet excited by alternating current.
The first practical use of the Poulsen telegraph was communication with the telephone: if the subscriber was not at home, the telegraph connected to the telephone received a message, and upon return the subscriber could listen to the recording of the call to him. In fact, Poulsen already at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. created an answering machine! This system operated on the Copenhagen telephone network and worked quite satisfactorily.

The Poulsen Telegraph was used as the first answering machine

However, telegraphs never became widespread. The recording quality remained poor and was accompanied by a lot of noise. And most importantly, the playback was very quiet - after all, amplifiers did not yet exist. But the invention of the amplifier in 1911 did not improve the quality of the recording: the noise remained, increasing along with the volume of speech. The telegraph was not suitable for recording music at all, although voice recorders based on it gradually began to spread. The steel recording medium prevented improved sound quality; however, steel tape was used until the mid-thirties. While the device was operating, it was necessary to stay away from it, since if the tape, flying at a speed of 2-3 meters per second, broke, its ends could seriously injure people. During installation or after breaking, the tape was welded, and then a terrible crack was heard at the junction, and, passing through the head, the weld literally tore its pole pieces. Therefore, the Marconi tape recorder produced in 1934 had a double set of heads. After passing the seam, the damaged head was turned off, the “fresh” one was turned on, and in the meantime the technician replaced the damaged tips with intact ones.
In Russia, practical work on magnetic sound recording began under the leadership of engineer V.K. Viktorsky in 1932. Within three years, Mosenergo began using a domestic voice recorder to document dispatcher conversations in the event of an accident. The recording was carried out on a steel wire at a speed of 2 meters per second.

One of the first domestic tape recorders - model of the 1930s.

The tape recorder began to become widespread only when the German scientist Pfeimer developed a new sound carrier system: instead of steel tape, Pfeimer proposed in 1927 to use paper tape coated with iron powder. By the way, in the USSR a similar development was patented back in 1925; it was a flexible celluloid tape coated with steel filings using wood glue. However, the Soviet invention went unnoticed not only in the West, but also at home... and Pfeimer’s idea was developed only in 1934-1935, when the German company BASF began mass production of magnetic tape made from carbonyl iron powder on a diacetate basis. The coil with a diameter of 25 centimeters weighed 1 kilogram and allowed recording for 20 minutes. At the same time, the AEG company began producing a studio magnetic recording device for radio broadcasting, calling it “tape recorder” - from which the modern word “tape recorder” came. Soon this device began to be widely used on German radio. Its modifications were also used in the English BBC studio: the recording made it possible to broadcast the same program to different time zones of the vast British Empire.
Before World War II, and in the first years after it, Germany remained at the forefront of developments in the field of magnetic sound recording. In 1940, German engineers Braunmuhl and Weber proposed magnetizing the tape with high-frequency current, which dramatically improved sound quality.
After the war, captured tape recorders and documents helped the development of this type of sound recording in both the USSR and the USA. In radio broadcasting in our country, captured devices and tape were used until the end of the fifties. On American radio, magnetic recording was first used in 1947: a concert of singer Bing Crosby was recorded on a captured “tape recorder” for subsequent broadcast. This device, one of the four most advanced German tape recorders at that time, was brought in in the summer of 1945 by a sharp-witted American soldier who had the profession of radio engineer. The US Military Memorabilia Act allowed privates to send home anything as long as it fit in a standard mailbox. The soldier photographed and sketched the tape recorders in detail, and then disassembled them and sent them in 35 boxes to America, where he then assembled them. The pop star was so impressed by the quality of the recording that Crosby invested a lot of money in the development and production of a new product, and already in 1950 at least 25 models of tape recorders were sold in the United States.

German WW2 tape recorder used with a radio station

Nevertheless, the Germans continued to remain ahead of other countries in the development of magnetic recording for some time. Thus, in 1957, AEG released the first two-track tape recorder, and in 1959, the Germans produced the first four-track device. However, all these tape recorders were still tube-based and therefore quite heavy and bulky. The Japanese were the first to significantly reduce the size and weight of a tape recorder - in 1956, Sony manufactured a transistor tape recorder - after removing the bulky radio tubes, the tape recorder became noticeably smaller and more elegant. And in 1961, the Dutch company Philips developed a cassette tape recorder, the dimensions of which, thanks to the compact sound carrier, were further reduced. It is curious that the idea of the cassette appeared thanks to blind people - they could not operate with reels, into the narrow slot of which the thin end of the tape had to be inserted, and compact cassettes were developed specifically for them. However, I liked the new product, and cassette recorders became very widespread.

different sound carriers of tape recorders: film on a reel and film in a cassette

As for our country, in the USSR, under the influence of German captured vehicles, at the end of the 1940s. began to produce more advanced tape recorders. First of all, these devices were made for radio studios and special organizations (like the KGB, and later the police). The first household tape recorder "Dnepr" was released in 1947. But then, due to shortages and high prices, few people could afford such luxury at home; mostly, tape recorders were owned by different organizations. This tape recorder had very modest characteristics; it was single-track, with a very high tape consumption due to the high speed. Because of all of the above, the Dnepr was produced in small quantities and was a rather rare device.

Studio tape recorder "MAG-2", model 1947

By 1950, magnetic tape recording already existed, but was inaccessible to the common population of the country due to the high price. The first attempt to make magnetic recording more accessible was the release of the MP-1 tape recorder at the beginning of 1954. It was simple in design and could work in conjunction with any type of radio equipment for playing records. The set-top box did not have an electric motor; to drive it, a record player disk was used, with which the set-top box was operated. The circuit contained one radio tube, which served as an erasure and bias generator, a correction recording amplifier and a signal pre-amplifier. All other functions were performed by the base device, to which the set-top box was connected via a special connector. Such a tape recorder cost 300 rubles at the 1955 exchange rate (30 rubles in post-reform prices).

MP-2 tape recorder, 1950s

Over time, the development and production of tape recorders improved, and their cost fell. As a result, subsequent modifications appeared after the first “Dnepr”, with much better characteristics, with standard belt speeds. The Dnepr-3 and Dnepr-9 devices were already quite accessible to the population and were relatively inexpensive (100-120 rubles - this amount could be accumulated without much damage to the standard of living over several months).

The first domestic mass-produced household tape recorder “Dnepr-3”.

At the same time, self-powered reporting portable tape recorders for radio journalists were also being developed. In order to save batteries, they were driven by a spring wound by a handle (like gramophones). A typical representative of them was the “MIZ-8” - the first domestic reportage portable, self-powered tape recorder with a “gramophone type” spring drive. The device was assembled using three radio tubes. Power is supplied from two batteries located in the compartment on the left. The single-track recording time of MIZ-8 was 15 minutes; This device weighed 7.2 kg.

Reporter's tape recorder - "MIZ-8". 1953 model

The first Soviet stereophonic tape recorder was the Yauza-10; in the 60s it cost almost 400 rubles - a considerable amount at that time. Particularly for this model, components were developed that had not previously been used in domestic household appliances: tape meter counter, dual regulators, track switch. Unfortunately, the fate of this model was not very successful: due to the high price and the lack of high-quality stereo signal sources in the mid-60s, by 1968 the production of Yauza-10 was discontinued: there was no point in the consumer buying such an expensive device, the capabilities of which couldn't use

The first domestic stereophonic tape recorder "Yauza-10".

But the Vesna tape recorder, produced since 1963, was very widespread and popular (my family had such a machine - my father bought it for 150 rubles, an amount quite acceptable for well-earning sailors). “Vesna” was a portable portable device that operated both from batteries (10 pieces of type 373) and from the mains. The tape recorder used "number 10" reels with a volume of 100 m, which provided 17 minutes of listening time per track. Such a unit (with batteries) weighed 5.5 kg.

Massive household tape recorder of the 60s. "Spring".

Widespread in the 70-80s. received tape recorders of the "Mayak" family (in addition to the first mono model 201, stereophonic 203 and 205), "Jupiter", "Rostov", "Orbita" were subsequently produced, and already in the early 80s semi-professional models "Electronics TA-001" and its "relative" in the "Olympus" class. These devices provided almost studio quality and allowed the use of tape on reels up to number 22 and were the dream of “underground” musicians of the late 70s and early 80s. Many subsequently famous performers and groups initially signed up for Olympus.

Mono tape recorder "Mayak 201" - exactly this type of device became a wedding gift when I got married in 1979

In the 70s In the USSR, cassette tape recorders began to spread widely, the sound carriers of which consisted of a 3.81 mm wide film enclosed in a plastic container. These devices had a low tape advance speed compared to reel-to-reel tape recorders, and this inevitably generated a high level of noise. Nevertheless, despite the deteriorated playback quality compared to reel-to-reel tape recorders, “cassette recorders” immediately gained enormous popularity - especially among young people, due to their small size and weight. Having inserted batteries into such a device, we proudly wandered through the streets in groups, casually waving it like a handbag, and filling the surroundings with loud (albeit slightly hissing) music...
One of the very first and most widespread in the 70s. The “cassette players” were the Elektronika-302 tape recorder, which was produced until 1984. It was with such a device that I “cut” through the streets of my hometown with my classmates, fortunately my “magic” weighed a little - 3.5 kg.

Portable cassette monophonic tape recorder of the third class "Electronics-302"

One of the first stereo cassette tape recorders was the Vesna-201-stereo device, produced since 1977. This tape recorder worked with its own loudspeaker as monophonic, and with external speakers as stereophonic. The “stereo cassette player” weighed 4.7 kg. In anticipation of the 1980 Olympic Games, from the beginning of 1978, the “Olympic” attribute was added to the name of this tape recorder. The cost of the tape recorder has increased accordingly. Until 1978, the plastic case of the tape recorder was covered with decorative wood-like film on the sides and back at the top, and since 1978 it began to be produced only in plastic, with the addition of aluminum design.

one of the first stereo cassette recorders "Spring-201-stereo".

Well, and then off we go... Soviet, and then Russian stores were filled with a mass of various tape recorders, including foreign ones, both high-quality and not so good. But this is a separate big story for specialists in this field, but I fulfilled the task set for myself to talk about the “very first” tape recorders...

The history of the invention of the tape recorder began quite a long time ago in Denmark, where Waldemar Paulsen invented a device called the telegraph.

As we know from history, most new discoveries are a logical continuation of previous discoveries. Thus, in 1888, the American engineer O. Smith published an article in which he described a method for improving the design of the phonograph invented by Edison. In the article, Smith proposed new progressive ideas for sound recording, proposing a completely new principle for recording sounds - magnetic. According to his plan, the information carrier was to be a cotton thread with steel filings applied to it. Due to the fact that Smith never created a working model to confirm his guesses, this invention remained a theory. The Danish inventor of the telegraph - the great-grandfather of the modern tape recorder - proposed using two magnetic heads for recording - recording and reading and, of course, a reel with a carrier, although the carrier was not a modern tape, but an ordinary iron wire. Principle Paulsen formed the basis of 20th-century sound recording technology virtually unchanged. But the telegraph was invented exactly one hundred and one years ago, when a twenty-nine-year-old engineer at the Copenhagen telephone company just wanted to play a trick on a friend and scare him with a recorded echo. In 1900 Waldemar Paulsen demonstrated his invention at the World Exhibition in Paris, where a few words spoken by the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph into the bell of the telegraph became the very first magnetic recording that has survived to this day. Also, visitors to the exhibition could write down a few words and listen to the recording. The quality of the recording left much to be desired; strong noise overwhelmed the already weak signal, which has a frequency band of up to 4000 hertz. Attempts were made to record in parallel on several wires, which increased the volume by 2-3 times. The use of an amplifier invented in 1911 did not improve the recording quality. The telegraph was not suitable for recording music. Later, Paulsen, using a telegraph, implementedanswering machine.

The telegraph device looks like Edison's phonograph. At first, the device was positioned as an improved phonograph that worked in conjunction with a telephone. The main difference of the new phonograph was that instead of a wax cylinder, it used steel wire, spirally wound in a single layer on a rotating cylinder.
When recording, a wire was passed between the poles of a small electromagnet, the coil of which was connected to the telephone. Current pulses excited in the microphone changed the strength of the electromagnet, which unevenly magnetized the steel wire. During playback, the wire was again passed between the poles of the electromagnet, inducing a weak electrical signal that vibrated the telephone membrane. One hundred meters of wire was enough for 45 seconds of recording.
Using wire as a carrier presented some problems. The steel wire was easily tangled and when connecting its individual pieces, it was necessary to tie them with a knot that did not pass through the magnetic head. Poulsen later switched to narrow steel tape wound on spools. If the tape breaks during operation of the device, it flies at a speed of 2-3 meters per second and could injure. After breaking, the tape was welded, passing through the head, the weld destroying its pole pieces. A method of magnetic recording on a rotating steel disk was considered, where the signal was recorded by a moving magnetic head.
Magnetic recording could have received a significant boost after its appearance in 1925 Soviet engineer patent I.I. Kreichman onto a flexible tape made of plastic and coated with magnetic powder. But, unfortunately, this invention went unnoticed.

In 1927 in Germany Fritz Pfleumer developed a technology for producing magnetic tape on a non-magnetic basis. The first tapes had a paper base. In 1932, the German company AEG bought the rights to Pfleimer's patent and began developing machines that recorded on paper tape. Even earlier, devices writing on steel tape were used for broadcasting in Germany and Great Britain. In 1935 the company "AEG" and "IG Farbenindustri", demonstrated a plastic-based magnetic tape at a radio exhibition in Germany. Serial production of magnetic tape was established, created from carbonyl iron powder or from magnetite on a diacetate basis. The new magnetic tape was much cheaper than steel, and had a number of other advantages. A reel of tape with a diameter of 25 centimeters allowed recording for 20 minutes. Commercial success came to the tape recorder only after the invention of a new sound carrier. The German inventor Pfeimer developed a technology for applying a layer of powdered iron to paper tape: the new sound carrier was well magnetized and demagnetized, it could be cut and glued. Subsequently, the paper tape was replaced with plastic tape - made from cellulose acetate, which is more durable, elastic and non-flammable. Ferromagnetic powder (iron oxides), pre-mixed with a binder (for example, nitro varnish), was sprayed onto the tape. The German company AEG first began producing such a tape in 1935. Tape tape revolutionized magnetic sound recording. It was light, compact, and retained magnetization well, which made it possible to reduce the speed of the sound carrier by several tens of times. On such film it was possible to record a much longer work than on wire.

In 1935, AEG developed a new sound recording device called the Magnetofon.. In the USSR, practical work on magnetic sound recording was carried out under the guidance of an engineer V. K. Viktorsky, since 1932. In Germany, they were successfully engaged not only in the creation of new tapes, but also heads. German engineer E. Schuller in 1938 developed and introduced into production a new type of functional ring-shaped heads. In the emerging tape recorders with new ring-shaped heads, a specially designed head (recording, reproducing and erasing) was used to perform each stage of creating a magnetic phonogram. Before World War II, Germany was a pioneer in the development of magnetic sound recording. In 1940, German engineers Braunmull and Weber proposed the principle of high-frequency magnetization. A patent for high-frequency magnetization was issued back in 1921 in the USA, but the physical basis of this phenomenon was discovered by Braunmuhl and Weber. In 1941, Braunmuell and Weber created a ring magnetic head, in combination with ultrasonic magnetization, this made it possible to significantly reduce noise and obtain higher-quality recordings. As a result of this work, for the first time it was possible to mass-produce sound recording equipment of such high quality that when used in radio broadcasting and sound reinforcement, listeners could no longer tell the difference in quality when broadcasting a live concert or playing back a previously made recording. Unfortunately, this event was not properly appreciated at the time due to the outbreak of World War II. The introduction of magnetic recording in other countries began only after the end of the war and access to German samples and documentation.

After World War II, captured German tape recorders gave a new impetus to the development of magnetic sound recording throughout the world. Samples of devices brought to the USA were actively used for radio broadcasting. In 1947, a concert of singer Bing Crosby was recorded on the captured device for subsequent broadcast. Bing Crosby then invested in the production of tape recorders. In 1950, 25 models of tape recorders were already sold in the United States. In USSR radio broadcasting, German tape recorders and tape were used until the end of the fifties.

IN 1951-52 Small-sized household tape recorders with magnetic tape on a plastic base appeared. Metal tape and wire were finally supplanted as information carriers. At this time, the developers' efforts were aimed at further improving the quality of sound reproduction. Two-channel amplifiers with frequency division appeared. The low- and high-frequency timbre separation circuit has become an integral part of any high-quality amplifier. In the 1950s, tape recorders were very expensive and not available to everyone. Therefore, various types of tape recorders with a simple tape mechanism and a simplified electronic recording unit were produced. Thus, the Toni tape recorder set-top box made in the GDR was connected to a radio receiver with a player. The tape drive mechanism of the set-top box was driven by the player's engine, and the receiver's amplifier was used to play the recording loudly. The speed of the tape was 19.05 cm/s. In the Soviet Union, simple tape recorder set-top boxes without its own drive were produced (“Volna”, “MP-1” and “MP-2”). This type of console quickly fell out of use due to the inconvenience of operation. Tape recorder set-top boxes, which have their own tape transport mechanism, turned out to be more convenient. Of the domestic tape recorder consoles of this type, the most famous is the “Nota” console, produced in the 1960s. The set-top box had an autonomous tape transport mechanism and a tube recording amplifier, but there was no audio amplifier. To listen to the recording loudly, the set-top box had to be connected to the audio amplifier of the radio. But despite this, the console was popular among music lovers, as it had a good design, especially its later models, small dimensions and weight. The belt speed was 9.5 cm/m. Radio amateurs built homemade amplifiers using tubes or transistors into the body of the set-top box and received a full-fledged tape recorder.

At first, tape recorders were tube recorders, only in 1956 a Japanese company Sony released the first all-transistor tape recorder. In 1957, AEG released the first two-track tape recorder. IN 1959 the same AEG released the first four-track tape recorder. The owner of the tape recorder had the opportunity not only to reproduce sound, but could also record it himself at home or in a concert hall. Magnetic tape made it possible to record sound multiple times. The number of recording cycles was limited only by the mechanical strength of the media. The first devices were reel-to-reel. Before starting work, it was necessary to thread the tape, stretching its free end past the magnetic heads, and secure it to the empty reel. When the tape recorder was running, the tape was rewound onto an empty reel.

In the late 50s, cartridges appeared, but cassette recorders became the most popular. The first cassette recorder was developed by a Dutch company Philips in 1961, the device was first positioned on the market as a “talking book for the blind.” In 1963, Philips began mass production of compact cassettes.
Compact cassettes are miniature reels of magnetic film closed in a plastic case. Using a cassette greatly simplifies the process of loading a tape recorder with film. Tape recording is two-sided. Cassettes are available for 60, 90 and 120 minutes of recording. The advent of two-cassette tape recorders simplifies the process of dubbing from one cassette to another as much as possible. Later, the microcassette was created and used in portable voice recorders and telephones with answering machines. In 1979, Sony released the Walkman, the first postcard-sized portable player. A miniature tape recorder without a recording unit and headphones instead of speakers was extremely popular on the market. Later, players with recording capabilities appeared.
In 1978, Sony introduces the first digital tape recorder. The digital era in sound recording begins.

100 years have already passed since the invention of the tape recorder and humanity does not think of giving it up. Waldemar Paulsen's invention is one of the three great inventions of the 19th century that had a great influence on the further development of our civilization, along with the Bell telephone and the Popov radio communication system. Although Paulsen subsequently did a lot in the field of radio engineering, it was this invention that turned out to be the most significant and placed him among the great scientists.

The history of the invention of the tape recorder began quite a long time ago in Denmark, where Waldemar Paulsen invented a device called the telegraph.

When recording, a wire was passed between the poles of a small electromagnet, the coil of which was connected to the telephone. Current pulses excited in the microphone changed the strength of the electromagnet, which unevenly magnetized the steel wire. During playback, the wire was again passed between the poles of the electromagnet, inducing a weak electrical signal that vibrated the telephone membrane. One hundred meters of wire was enough for 45 seconds of recording.

Using wire as a carrier presented some problems. The steel wire was easily tangled and when connecting its individual pieces, it was necessary to tie them with a knot that did not pass through the magnetic head. Poulsen later switched to narrow steel tape wound on spools. If the tape breaks during operation of the device, it flies at a speed of 2-3 meters per second and could injure. After breaking, the tape was welded, passing through the head, the weld destroying its pole pieces. A method of magnetic recording on a rotating steel disk was considered, where the signal was recorded by a moving magnetic head.
Magnetic recording could have received a significant boost after its appearance in 1925 Soviet engineer patent I.I. Kreichman onto a flexible tape made of plastic and coated with magnetic powder. But, unfortunately, this invention went unnoticed.

In 1927 in Germany Fritz Pfleumer developed a technology for producing magnetic tape on a non-magnetic basis. The first tapes had a paper base. In 1932, the German company AEG bought the rights to Pfleimer's patent and began developing machines that recorded on paper tape. Even earlier, devices writing on steel tape were used for broadcasting in Germany and Great Britain. In 1935 the company AEG and IG Farbenindustri, demonstrated a plastic-based magnetic tape at a radio exhibition in Germany. Serial production of magnetic tape was established, created from carbonyl iron powder or from magnetite on a diacetate basis. The new magnetic tape was much cheaper than steel, and had a number of other advantages. A reel of tape with a diameter of 25 centimeters allowed recording for 20 minutes. Commercial success came to the tape recorder only after the invention of a new sound carrier. The German inventor Pfeimer developed a technology for applying a layer of powdered iron to paper tape: the new sound carrier was well magnetized and demagnetized, it could be cut and glued. Subsequently, the paper tape was replaced with plastic tape - made from cellulose acetate, which is more durable, elastic and non-flammable. Ferromagnetic powder (iron oxides), pre-mixed with a binder (for example, nitro varnish), was sprayed onto the tape. The German company AEG first began producing such a tape in 1935. Tape tape revolutionized magnetic sound recording. It was light, compact, and retained magnetization well, which made it possible to reduce the speed of the sound carrier by several tens of times. On such film it was possible to record a much longer work than on wire.

In 1935, AEG developed a new sound recording device called the Magnetofon.. In the USSR, practical work on magnetic sound recording was carried out under the guidance of an engineer V. K. Viktorsky, since 1932. In Germany, they were successfully engaged not only in the creation of new tapes, but also heads. German engineer E. Schuller in 1938 developed and introduced into production a new type of functional ring-shaped heads. In the emerging tape recorders with new ring-shaped heads, a specially designed head (recording, reproducing and erasing) was used to perform each stage of creating a magnetic phonogram. Before World War II, Germany was a pioneer in the development of magnetic sound recording. In 1940, German engineers Braunmuhl(Braunmull) and Weber(Weber) proposed the principle of high-frequency magnetization. A patent for high-frequency magnetization was issued back in 1921 in the USA, but the physical basis of this phenomenon was discovered by Braunmuhl and Weber. In 1941, Braunmuell and Weber created a ring magnetic head, in combination with ultrasonic magnetization, this made it possible to significantly reduce noise and obtain higher-quality recordings. As a result of this work, for the first time it was possible to mass-produce sound recording equipment of such high quality that when used in radio broadcasting and sound reinforcement, listeners could no longer tell the difference in quality when broadcasting a live concert or playing back a previously made recording. Unfortunately, this event was not properly appreciated at the time due to the outbreak of World War II. The introduction of magnetic recording in other countries began only after the end of the war and access to German samples and documentation.

Compact cassettes are miniature reels of magnetic film closed in a plastic case. Using a cassette greatly simplifies the process of loading a tape recorder with film. Tape recording is two-sided. Cassettes are available for 60, 90 and 120 minutes of recording. The advent of two-cassette tape recorders simplifies the process of dubbing from one cassette to another as much as possible. Later, the microcassette was created and used in portable voice recorders and telephones with answering machines.

In 1979, Sony released the Walkman, the first postcard-sized portable player. A miniature tape recorder without a recording unit and headphones instead of speakers was extremely popular on the market. Later, players with recording capabilities appeared.

In 1978, Sony introduces the first digital tape recorder. The digital era in sound recording begins.

Inventor: Waldemar Poulsen
A country: Denmark
Time of invention: 1898

The principle of magnetic recording on steel wire was first developed by Oberlin Smith in 1888, influenced by his visit to the laboratory in 1878.

The ancestor of the tape recorder - the telegraph - was invented by the Danish physicist Waldemar Poulsen. In 1898, Poulsen created a device that exploited the phenomenon of remanent magnetization and converted sound waves into magnetic pulses that were recorded on a thin steel wire.

A sound source was connected to the telegraph input. The current from it was supplied to an electromagnet of a special shape.

The magnetic field created by the electromagnet magnetized the steel wire, which moved past the magnet at a certain speed.

In time with the transmitted sound, the current taken from the microphone increased or decreased, and consequently, the strength of the magnetic field created by the recording magnet increased or decreased.

To play the phonogram, the wire was passed past the playback magnet. During the movement, the magnetic field lines of the phonogram crossed the turns of the coil, in which, due to the law of electromagnetic induction, an electric current arose corresponding to the sounds recorded on the wire. These weak electrical impulses were converted into sound waves. They were listened to without an amplifier using. The sound quality was very poor and the telegraph was not widely used.

It took thirty years for Poulsen's remarkable invention to gain recognition. This was facilitated, first of all, by the emergence and development of amplifier circuits based on them, as well as the improvement of the sound carrier itself. The wire tended to demagnetize quickly.

To compensate for this unpleasant property, it was necessary to increase the speed of its movement, which At first it reached several meters per second. Even a small soundtrack required a huge amount of wire. Although its thickness did not exceed 0.1 mm, the recording reels took up a lot of space and were very heavy.

The thin wire was torn, tangled, and twisted during movement. They tried to replace it with steel tape. The breaks stopped, but the volume and weight of the sound carrier increased several times more. To spin a reel of such tape, a powerful electric motor was required. The running gears turned out to be very cumbersome. During this period, magnetic recording gave unpromising results.

Commercial success came to the tape recorder only after the invention of a new sound carrier. German inventor Fritz Pfleimer developed a technology for applying a powder layer to tape: the new sound carrier was well magnetized and demagnetized, it could be cut and glued.

Subsequently, the paper tape was replaced with plastic tape - made from cellulose acetate, which is more durable, elastic and non-flammable. Ferromagnetic powder (iron oxides), pre-mixed with a binder (for example, nitro varnish), was sprayed onto the tape. The German company AEG first began producing such a tape in 1935.

Tape tape revolutionized magnetic sound recording. It was light, compact, and retained magnetization well, which made it possible to reduce the speed of the sound carrier by several tens of times. On such film it was possible to record a much longer work than on wire.

Recording on tape was the same as on wire. From all that has been said, it is clear that the most important elements of the tape recorder were recording and reproducing electromagnets, which are called magnetic heads. Both heads were magnetic cores covered by coils. There was a gap in the core filled with special bronze foil. The current passing through the winding of the recording head formed a magnetic field that passed through the magnetic core and exited its working gap into the surrounding space.

When this field was constant, it uniformly magnetized the entire tape passing through it. When an electric current passed through the head winding, which arose as a result of sound influence on the microphone, the magnetic field in the gap in the head changed depending on the strength of the microphone current, that is, in accordance with the strength of sound vibrations.

At the same time, the tape acquired different magnetization and turned into a phonogram. Its various sections turned out to be differently magnetized, both in strength and direction. The magnetic field lines of these individual sections, closing in space, formed an external magnetic field.

When playing a magnetic phonogram, the tape moved at the same speed as during recording, moving past the reproducing head and exciting an electric current in its windings, which varied in accordance with the strength of the magnetic field of the tape. Then the current that arose in the winding and was amplified was supplied to the speaker.

For repeated use of the same tape, there was an erase head powered by a special tube generator with high-frequency currents. The current created by this generator was passed through windings of the erasing head. While the tape passed through the field created by this head, it was repeatedly remagnetized and, as a result, left it in a demagnetized state.

After erasing, the magnetic tape entered the field of the recording head. Here, each element of the tape was subjected to double exposure to a magnetic field, which was formed, on the one hand, by the current of the recording signal, and on the other, by an additional bias current entering the recording head from a high-frequency generator.

This additional high-frequency current supply is called magnetization. It is necessary to combat the distortions that various parts of the tape recorder - primarily lamps and - have had on the sensitive magnetic tape. During operation, a fairly strong magnetic field was created around them, which also magnetized the tape.

For a long time, this unwanted magnetization (manifested during listening in the form of noise, crackling and hum) greatly reduced the quality of phonograms. Only after they learned to mix a high-frequency bias current into the signal current did the quality of the magnetic phonogram increase so much that it began to compete with mechanical sound recording - records.

The tape recorder had two reels - feed and take-up. To move the tape, a mechanism consisting of an electric motor, a drive shaft, a pressure roller and other parts was used. Typically, a tape recorder had a device for fast rewinding the tape from reel to reel in both directions.