Wire Recorders: the OG Magnetic Recording Technology

Wire recorders were the original magnetic recording technology, predating the modern tape recorder by 50 years. Instead of a coated plastic tape, they encoded audio magnetically on a thin steel wire. Their heyday was brief, lasting from 1945-1955 - after which the technology was superseded (except in specialized applications) by magnetic tape.

SOURCES:

[JerryEricsson]

When I was a boy, we were dirt poor, mom worked as a cook, dad was disabled with no pay. So back then the City Dump was unmanned and open to the public, I had a buddy who lived down the street and we pretty much ran together. One of our favorite things to do was to hit the dump grounds and see what we could scavenge. I picked up a ton of old radios, tape recorders, and yes one of those wire recorders. My buddy claimed that and took it home, his dad fixed it up and they had a blast with the machine. I pretty much learned electronics by playing with the things from that city dump, and my buddies dad kept our tradition after we grew up and moved away. He was still doing dump ground trips twenty years ago till he ended up in the nursing home. He recently passed away at the age of 99 years and 300 days.

[Starphot]

I repaired a Webster Chicago for a friend not too long ago and made a video on it. It needed cleaning and a tube rejuvenated. The old crystal mic element went long ago. Those can be replaced by a ceramic mic, a more robust version. My friend wanted the recorder fixed enough to get the audio history his Swedish grandfather recorded on multiple reels to a more modern medium. One of the reels contained General Douglas MacArthur's "Fade away" speech recorded off of a radio. My friend's main concern is to get all of that Swedish translated! The recordings were surprising clear and consistent on most of the reels. I noticed that only one tube was replaced in its time with the original owner.

When I was but a kid about 8 or 9 years old back in the late 1950s my brother and I used to play with this exact Webster Chicago model. It belonged to my Dad who was a professional musician. We recorded made up story dramas, complete with soundtracks, and did pretend radio shows as the DJs. Then (of course) the wire would break and I think we spent most of our time untangling those big cotton candy like poof balls of wire that would happen when the wire broke. We spent hours and hours in the basement letting our imaginations run wild and playing with this wonderful old piece of technology back then. Great memories!

[socialite]

Magnetic tape recorders (the Magnetophon) had been invented in Germany and was first demonstrated in 1935 at the Berlin Radio Show and by 1943 a practical stereo model was in use. About 250 stereo tape recordings were known to exist prior to 1945, but only 3 still exist from that era. The electric condenser microphone was invented by E.C. Wente at Bell Laboratories in 1916.

The Magnetophon used ferrous oxide-coated paper tape.

[lxfabi]

I am always amazed to hear such old recordings.
I knew about the technology already, but thank you for this video. You deserve more subs.

[xaenon]

The most likely problem with the record feature is the piezoelectric element in the microphone has deteriorated due to age and moisture. Most microphones and phono cartridges of that era used a material known as Rochelle Salts, and it has a tendency to absorb and retain moisture, and over a long period of time it decomposes into a lumpy powder - especially if the equipment sits idle for a long period of time, as I'm sure this wire recorder has. If you have a very old record player with this type of cartridge (most before about 1960), and it has sat in storage for a long period of time in the more humid geographical regions, they deteriorate in pretty much the same way.

There is probably a specialty company that could rebuild that microphone for you.

[johnstone]

I had one of these machines years ago, and the recording quality was far better than what you demonstrated here. These machines need full overhauls to function properly. There are numerous old capacitors in the electronics that go leaky, and the bias oscillator has to be working perfectlyto get decent sound quality. Given a properly operating machine, I'd say the performance of this machine could rival that of a 50s consumer tape recorder operating at 3.75ips.

[charlesachurch]

Arthur Miller introduced this medium in his play "Death of a Salesman ". Thankyou for this fascinating presentation. XXX

[agranero]

My father told me about those, he worked with electronics. He said that erasing those wires was kind of difficult because steel needed much more field to be magnetized, you ended up sometimes with a remaining under the new recording (I suppose). I think that part of the distortion was because no bias was applied to the signal to compensate for the non-linearity of the magnetic medium.

[TheAnimeist]

15:12 The Protona Minifon P-55 L/S uses vacuum tubes. Incredible.

[GarrettHypes]

My dad had one that I used to play with. That one had a turntable base above the take-up reel and an arm so it doubled as a phonegraph.

[Elephantine]

I had seen an old wire recorder spool that had dictation on it at the county medical examiner's office (or all places) and always wondered about the lost technology, so thanks for explaining.

[clydesight]

Amazing tech for its day! The crystal elements in the microphones fail the test of time. Later "Webcor" TAPE recorders used crystal elements which also failed in time. These crystals can be easily replaced with crystal elements used in later, portable battery tape recorders, oir even from ham radios of the time. Or, you could take a mic meant for a portable (say, a Ross-Mark 3-inch R2R) and make an adapter plug for it.

[Actranuk]

Surprising good quality. What is the duration of one of those little spools and can you still obtain them?

[hattree]

Webcor/Webster - Chicago was sold in 1967, but they did survive as a nameplate into the 70's.

[DanielEMacKay]

I have one of these - this model. it is beautiful, it works beautifully.

[juslitor]

quite amazing how long the wire recorders stuck around, considering the tape recorders were invented in 1935

[InssiAjaton]

I have one wire recorder of the same form factor, but apparently a copy, I guess. As there is no capstan, the pitch is somewhat variable. To minimize the effect of reel diameter growth with added layers, the receiving reel is made large in diameter, and fixed, while the source reel is kept much smaller. The small one is removable, or easier to handle and mail or store. The sound quality at least on my unit is a far cry from any HiFi, but has obviously served its purpose for criminal investigation, i.e. storing suspect's or witnesses responses to questioning. That at least can be deduced from the paper note that tells the unit's only storage place is to be in the police chief's office.

[AudioThrift]

Well... today I learned I need a Minifon. That thing's AWESOME!

[dhpbear]

10:50 - I don't believe that 'bias' had been invented before this recorder was made. Also, is the steel wire coated with oxide?