About the Company
Minifon wasn’t a classic reel-to-reel tape recorder manufacturer in the same category as companies like Akai, Revox, or Sony — instead, it was the name used for a series of miniature portable magnetic recording devices built by German engineering firms (notably Monske & Co. GmbH, later Protona GmbH, and finally Telefunken after acquisition). While its early products didn’t use traditional open-reel magnetic tape, later variants did transition toward tape formats, and its place in the history of portable magnetic recording makes it notable in the broader tape-recorder narrative.
Brand & Origins
Developer/Manufacturer: Originally Monske & Co. GmbH (later incorporated as Protona GmbH) in Hamburg, Germany; subsequently Telefunken continued the line after acquiring Protona in the early 1960s.
Period of activity: Early 1950s to mid-1960s (about 1951–1967).
Product nature: Very small portable magnetic recording devices originally using magnetic wire and later evolving to tape cartridges on pocket recorders.
Primary use: Dictation, covert/espionage recording, and mobile audio capture — not mass-market hi-fi or professional studio decks.
Historical Development
Early 1950s — Prototype and Launch
Minifon began as a remarkably miniaturized recording device developed by engineer Willi Draheim starting around 1948, with early models like the Mi-51 appearing around 1951. These earliest units used magnetic wire (Draht) as the recording medium, a technology that predated widespread magnetic tape use and allowed very compact recorders for the time.
Mi-51 (c. 1951): Battery-powered dynamo of tiny dimensions (≈17 × 11 × 3.5 cm) capable of up to ~2.5 hours of wire recording — a genuine achievement in portable magnetic recording early in the post-war era.
These “wire recorders” were exceptionally small compared with the bulky open-reel decks common in studios and homes then, and they presaged the eventual move toward compact tape formats.
Mid-1950s — Classic Portable Units
One of the best-known early Minifon machines was the Minifon P-55 (produced roughly 1955–1960):
Minifon P-55: A miniature portable wire recorder in a leather case — extremely small and innovative for its time.
While not a reel-to-reel tape recorder by the traditional definition, it was part of the transitional generation of magnetic recording devices bridging wire and tape.
These devices were marketed as dictating machines, but their tiny size and portable nature also made them useful for covert recording, and accessories such as disguised microphones (e.g., hidden in pens or wristwatches) were sold for surveillance purposes.
Late 1950s – Early 1960s — Transition to Magnetic Tape
As magnetic tape technology matured and transistors became available, Minifon designs evolved:
Minifon Attaché (c. 1959): One of the first transistorized Minifon units that used magnetic tape cartridges rather than wire.
This model pioneered an early proprietary tape cartridge system — a precursor idea to later standardized formats like the compact cassette — though it never achieved broad commercial adoption outside the Minifon ecosystem.
Many later Minifon recorders continued to use unique small cassette-like media through the early 1960s, even as mainstream reel-to-reel and then compact cassette formats took over the audio market.
Mid-1960s Onward — End of Production
After 1962, Protona (now part of Telefunken) continued marketing Minifon-branded portable recorders, but as magnetic tape cartridges and standardization evolved, the line became less distinctive among emerging dictation and tape recorder technologies.
Production and marketing of Minifon recorders ended by about 1967, as the compact cassette and other tape formats dominated portable recording.
Why Minifon Isn’t a Classic Reel-to-Reel Brand
When people ask about reel-to-reel tape recorder manufacturers, they typically mean companies that made open-reel decks with removable reels of magnetic tape for audio recording/playback (e.g., Sony, Tandberg, Akai). In contrast:
Minifon’s core designs were not conventional open-reel tape decks — they used wire or proprietary small cartridges for magnetic recording.
While later Minifon units did start using magnetic tape in cartridge form, they were integrated portable recorders rather than traditional reel-to-reel recorders targeted at the mainstream hi-fi or professional market.
Hence, Minifon is better understood as a transitional pioneer in portable magnetic recording, rather than part of the lineage of full-featured reel-to-reel recorder manufacturers.
Legacy
Innovation in miniaturization: Minifon machines were among the smallest magnetic recording devices of their era, pushing the boundaries well before the compact cassette became standard.
Cultural impact: These recorders were used for dictation, journalism, covert recording, and specialty audio tasks, and they even featured in espionage contexts during the Cold War.
Bridge to future formats: Their shift from wire to tape cartridges reflects the broader transition in magnetic recording leading toward portable audio formats.