On online auctions, music lovers can find really rare lots. For example, the
Beatles collectible album with the
“White Album” or a vintage player (by the way, this week we told about which celebrity prefers
records ).
Among other things, you can find quite unusual devices. One of them is a teffone player. These audio gadgets, produced in the 50s and 60s of the last century, are mainly offered by German sellers. In this article we will tell about the history of tefiffon.
Photo of BlueBreezeWiki / CC BY-SAWhat is teffon
Teffon is an audio carrier, a kind of intermediate element in the history of the development of audio formats - somewhere between the record and
Stereo 8 . By design, the teffon is similar to a cassette - it also uses a tape cartridge with a sound track (or several tracks) on it. And with the disc it is related to the way of reproduction: the player (the player, like the carrier, sometimes called tefiffon) has a pickup with a needle.
On the YouTube channel Techmoan has a
detailed overview of the device . The author demonstrates the cartridges - they are also called “tefi” - and how they are reproduced. In a model that Techmoan has at its disposal, the cartridge is pushed mechanically, and the needle position can be switched using a special wheel or remote control. In this way, you can change the audio tracks on a single cartridge.
Photo Bobo11 / CC BY-SAThe history of the heyday and sunset tefiffon
The device and the audio format were invented by the German entrepreneur Karl Daniel (
Karl Daniel ), the owner of the company Tefi. It happened in the mid 1930s. The main purpose of tefi was to record the voice, the player and the carrier were used mainly by the military.
The device entered the mass market in the late 40s. Before that, German consumers had access to Tefiphon's predecessors, Tefiphon (used for recording and reproducing sound) and Teficord (used only for reproduction). Their main difference from Tefifon is that the cassettes were not played on them. In these devices installed directly tape.
Photo by Norbert Schnitzler / CC BY-SAThe peak of the popularity of the format came in the 50s with the advent of the sale of the first full-fledged players. Some models were supplied with radios. Both stationary and portable devices were sold. In 1954, the company of Karl Daniel merged with the company of the famous German businessman Heinz Kisters. This has allowed to expand the geography of sales of tefi. Three years later, Karl Daniel left the company.
In 1961, the first stereo-stereo went on sale. He never became commercially successful. The last bright event in the history of the format and the device was going beyond the borders of Germany.
Teffiones began to be imported to the USA in 1963. Their sale before 1964 in the States was engaged in the company Westrex. On the Internet, you can still find German tefiffy, which were sold in the United States under the brand Westrex, but they are less common than the original models - the format and gadget did not become popular on the US market.
In 1965, the main production of tefiffon in Germany was closed.
Why Teffiphones lost their listener so quickly
From the few testimonies we can conclude that the Teffion had a very short period of fame - namely, the 1950s. Prior to this, the format tried to compete with records familiar to listeners, and afterwards with the first cassettes.
There are several reasons for the short century of popularity of tefiphons. There were no recordings of famous musicians on tefi. Popular artists were tied up with record companies. Those, in turn, were not interested in new media and did not give permission to record songs on tefi. As a result, at the disposal of the owners of Tiffon there were songs of little-known performers and classical music.
Photo by Fonzie / CC BY-SAIt is known that in terms of sound quality, teffiphones surpassed shellac records at 78 revolutions per minute. But at the same time the format was inferior to vinyl records at 33 revolutions per minute. In addition, the components of tefifon quickly broke down due to mechanical effects on the needle.
It is also important that the teffon “got out” too late for Germany. For years, the audio carrier was isolated from consumers from around the world until it hit the US market. True, it happened at the wrong time - only a year before the appearance of the compact Stereo 8 format. After a short period of time, cassette players began to appear in cars. Then Stereo 8 became a truly “popular” format. And tefifony, although technologically close to the first cassettes, remained “intermediate link”.
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