The wire recorder was a short-lived but important form of consumer sound recording device. It has a history that goes back to the 19th century, but the vast majority of wire recorders ever produced were made in the period from the late 1940s to the early 1950s.

Unfortunately, not much reliable historical information about these machines is out there. It’s a common assumption, for example, that wire recorders “evolved” into tape recorders, which is really not true. It’s also not true that early tape recorders had better sound quality than wire recorders (in fact, that’s the usual assumption about why wire recorders “failed”).

The following pages outline the history of the wire recorder, and trace its slow rise and rapid decline.