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Vintage Electronics - The Tefifon

Vintage Electronics - The Tefifon

Techmoan
3 HN recommenders · discussed 2016–2018
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About this video

Techmoan demonstrates the Tefifon, a vintage German audio player that combines elements of record and tape with a grooved elastic loop. He shows how it works and plays it.

Why it appears in the archive

HN fans use it as the gateway to the Techmoan channel and praise it as one of the most fascinating obscure audio formats.

AI-generated summary and labels from the source dataset; verify important details against the video. Source & credits.

From the Hacker News discussion

InclinedPlane · 2016-03 · strong rec

The coolest thing he's covered, I think, that I'd never heard of before is the tefifon: [VIDEO] It's basically a continuous loop of tape (similar to an 8-track) but with groves recording music (like a vinyl record). It didn't see much popularity outside of Germany and then was essentially obsoleted by magnetic tape. Such a fascinating technology though. In a parallel Universe it probably would have been vastly more popular.

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rogerbinns · 2018-06 · strong rec

My gateway video was the one on the Tefifon - [VIDEO] - a consumer music playback format. Production ended the same decade we stood on the moon.

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aembleton · 2016-04 · rec

If you want another rabbit hole to start down, I can also recommend Techmoan. He doesn't do teardowns, but instead likes to buy old HiFi gear and reviews them. Some of them are incredibly obscure such as the Tefifon: [VIDEO]

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dexen · 2017-01 · reference

Speaking of forgotten audio formats: Tefifon, old german analog loop of elastic, non-magnetic, tape. More or less ``8-track meet vinyl''. [VIDEO] [LINK]

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