Tefifon
Sunday, 9 March 2008
In a comment on my story about the Bimbo Box a certain Crush mentions that the tape machine used in the original Bimbo Boxes is called a Tefifon, in stead of the word that I made of it.
I just did a little search and was surprised by what I found. As always, what I found was far more than I expected.
The Tefifon is a precursor of the tape recorder and worked pretty much like a record player, with a needle and a groove. It took me little effort to find pictures and descriptions, so I won’t give you a list of links.
The best information that I found was on John’s Radio Web. And there were several other great sides, but they had their texts and pictures protected against criminals like me, who want to download that.
The Tefifon was an invention of the German engineer Karl Daniel, who already in the thirties made these machines for the German army. In the forties the Tefifon became available for the public. I read that the sound quality was better than that of shellack records, but less than the later vinyl records. There were pre-recorded tapes on the market, but you could also buy tapes for home-recording. And there could be recorded up to four hours on one single tape! So far I have found only one sound sample, and that sounds indeed very good. Much better than the Tefifon recordings that I have heard in the Bimbo Boxes.
Every time I discover something that I never heard of, and the Tefifon is just one example out of many, I wonder how many more there must be. Probably more than I can handle. But if you happen to know something, please let me know anyway.
Comments:
Jan
2008-03-09 01:09:27
There are several ways around protected pictures on the net: the most easy one is a screenshot.
And there are mozilla-plug-ins that disable the right-click protection.
Jan
2008-03-09 05:29:20
Ik heb het toch écht maar één keer geplaatst hoor…
frits
2008-03-09 11:59:19
Ik ga die Mozilla-plug proberen! Bedankt voor de tip, Jan.
Doug Pocius
2008-10-11 18:18:49
My Dad brought a Tefifon back from Germany back in the late ’50s. I remember he had it integrated with the hi-fi (before stereo) system, along with an FM tuner, a phonograph, the Hammond organ my Mom played, and a half-dozen surplus aircraft receivers he used to monitor various aircraft frequencies (my Dad was a pilot for Flying Tiger Lines). We only had 3 or 4 cartridges for it. It got away from us in the early ’70s when he upgraded to quadrophonic. I wish I had kept it; it was an odd duck for sure.
Kari Ramas
2009-07-26 10:23:46
I have one Tefifon KC-1 / Ra and 6 tape : TD/S 2178, 2219,2255, 2279, 2287 and 2306. K Ramas Helsinki
Debbie Blumer
2009-12-10 04:19:24
Hi! We restore Bimbo Boxes and recently we had our tape stolen out of it. Could someone please help us out with another tape. We would really appreciate your help, thanks, Debbie.
Arno Peeters
2011-10-14 22:16:13
Hello , I have a Bimbobox with cats for sale.
for pictures or price visit my homepage.
www.collectors-world.nl
Francis Grandy
2011-11-08 03:44:36
I just dug out my old tefi-fon I had while in Germany but it has no sound. Do you know where I can find a schematic in english?
Francis Grandy
2011-11-08 03:44:37
I just dug out my old tefi-fon I had while in Germany but it has no sound. Do you know where I can find a schematic in english?
Francis Grandy
2011-11-08 03:44:37
I just dug out my old tefi-fon I had while in Germany but it has no sound. Do you know where I can find a schematic in english?
Jan
2008-03-09 01:08:55
There are several ways around protected pictures on the net: the most easy one is a screenshot.
And there are mozilla-plug-ins that disable the right-click protection.