A tale from WWII:
At 2:30 and 5:40 if you listen carefully you can hear RAF bombs dropping on Berlin outside the studio even through the soundproofing.
This was recorded on AEG Magnetophon tape recorders, in stereo.
In the general chaos of the last few months of WWII, U. S. Army Signal Corps Major Jack Mullins “obtained” two tape recorders and fifty reels of tape. Major Mullins returned to the U. S. A. He showed Bing Crosby the machines and Crosby partnered with a Russian named Alexander Matthew Poniatoff. Together they formed AMPEX to reverse engineer tape recorders from the two samples. They approached 3M to figure out how to make the tape. They all made a fortune.
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I love old gismos.