3 HN users recommended this demo3 months2016–2018score 4
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026
HN fans use it as the gateway to the Techmoan channel and praise it as one of the most fascinating obscure audio formats.
Techmoan demonstrates the Tefifon, a vintage German audio player that combines elements of record and tape with a grooved elastic loop. He shows how it works and plays it.
“My gateway video was the one on the Tefifon” (HN, 2018)
The coolest thing he's covered, I think, that I'd never heard of before is the tefifon: [this video] It's basically a continuous loop of tape (similar to an 8-track) but with groves recording music (like a vinyl record). It didn't see much popularity outside of Germany and then was essentially obsoleted by magnetic tape. Such a fascinating technology though. In a parallel Universe it probably would have been vastly more popular.
Coolest obscure format covered, a tape loop with grooves.
If you want another rabbit hole to start down, I can also recommend Techmoan. He doesn't do teardowns, but instead likes to buy old HiFi gear and reviews them. Some of them are incredibly obscure such as the Tefifon: [this video]
Techmoan reviews obscure old HiFi gear like the Tefifon.
Speaking of forgotten audio formats: Tefifon, old german analog loop of elastic, non-magnetic, tape. More or less ``8-track meet vinyl''. [this video] [link]
Tefifon is an elastic loop format, like 8-track meets vinyl.
Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.
Plays via YouTube's privacy-enhanced embed
4 Hacker News comments
From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.
Citations, criticism and jokes