the wire recorder
The next beast reviewed on our tour of the Jurassic Audio Park should have been the Quad format...
But I completely fell in love with this machine, found in one of my Chicagoland friend's cellar.

We all more or less heard about it : that the first magnetic audio recordings were made on a steel wire... But it's the first time I laid my own eyes on one... and in working condition, more than 50 years after it was manufactured !!!

First of all, the "thing" : This "Model 80" was manufactured by WEBSTER CHICAGO, in 1945, and was nicknamed an "Electronic Memory" (we're still far from a PC flash card !). It's a portable recorder, the top cover can stow several reels of wire as well as a microphone and connection cables.   According to my friend's mother, owner of the machine, it is the same model that Clark Kent * used on his desk for his work as a reporter for the Daily Planet. I wasn't able to know if it was in the 1948 motion picture (directed by Spencer Gordon Tracy and Thomas Carr) or in the 140 episode TV series (1953-1957) with George Reeves.   * a.k.a. Superman, but with glasses, you really can't tell it's him.

the model 18-1

Webster Chicago was famous in the forties with several recording machines and other Hi-Fi equipment in their catalog. On the left, a machine prior (?) to the Model 80.

Now a bit of history : Magnetic recording was invented, depending on your ethical beliefs, by - Oberlin Smith (Brittish), who published a theoretical paper on the system in 1888. - Valdemar Poulsen (Danish), who built, in his early twenties, the first operational machine : the Telegraphon, in 1889. Doesn't that look furiously similar to the "Charles Cros / Thomas Edison" affair concerning the phonograph ? Who is the inventor, the scribbler or the builder ?

Front of the model 80... They knew how to keep it simple !

The Telegraphon was presented at the 1900 fair in Paris, but was unnoticed amongst all the recording systems using cylinders or records !

Between 1920 and 1935, considerable improvement was made on the recording medium : the steel wire makes way for the steel tape, then a coated paper tape is used, before finally resorting to today's plastic backing.

In 1935, AEG builds the magnetophon, which uses plastic coated tape. The tape moves at a speed of 30 i/s. This speed will remain the standard from which the other well known subdivisions spawned : 15 ips, 7.5 ips, etc.

close-up of the recording/playback mechanism

But let's go back to wire recording and the MODEL 80 !

I couldn't calculate the nominal spooling speed of the machine, but if I were to guess (it spools much faster than I thought it would, hence a sound that's quite good for that era !), I'd say it's about 30 ips.

The recording/playback head is mounted on a mechanism that slowly moves up and down. The movement speeds up proportionaly when fast winding is engaged, that mechanism is therefore certainly coupled to the take-up reel's (the big metal one) motor. Just as with fishing reels, the object is to get a uniform winding on the entire height of the reel, so no overlaps can occur, which would inevitably result in the wire breaking !

The microphone's look alone is worth a picture ! It seems it was taken from a set on George Pal's War of the Worlds ! Note the connector which really deserves its own cage in the Jurassic Audio Park !

You can laugh all you want, but I'm sure that in 40 years, we'll have the same nostalgic and respectful tears in our eyes in front of a "good old" 3348 Sony or X880 Mitsibishi, Direct to Disk equipment being so overrated we could almost forget that "not too long ago", we recorded on media that you had to manipulate.... yuuuuck, manual work !

My friend's mother is also the proud owner of another machine of the same era, which combines radio, phonograph and wire recorder ! The turntable also doubles as the supply reel for the wire recorder. And you've guessed it, there is a copy function from the record to the wire, making it the first copyright infringment machine I know !
I'm waiting for the pictures which souldn't take long to get here...