Editing Wire recording (section)

=== Media capacity and speed ===
Compared to tape recorders, wire recording devices have a high media speed, made necessary because of the use of the solid metal medium. Standard postwar wire recorders use a nominal speed of 24 inches per second (610&nbsp;mm/s), making a typical one-hour spool of wire 7,200 feet (approx. 2200 m) long. This enormous length is possible on a spool less than {{convert|3|in|mm}} in diameter because the wire was very fine, having a diameter of {{convert|.004|to|.006|in|mm|abbr=on}} for later models, an improvement over Poulsen's Telegraphone of 1898 which used {{convert|.01|in|mm|adj=on}} wire.<ref>{{cite book |url=http://www.aes.org/aeshc/docs/recording.technology.history/begun6.html |pages=135–56 |title=Magnetic Recording |first=Semi J. |last=Begun |year=1949 |publisher=Rinehart & Company |location=New York}} Transcribed and hosted online by the [[Audio Engineering Society]].</ref> Smaller 30- and 15-minute lengths of wire were employed by the majority of recorders made after 1945. Some heavy-duty recorders use the larger Armour spools, which can contain enough wire to record continuously for several hours. Because the wire is pulled past the head by the take-up spool, the actual wire speed slowly increases as the effective diameter of the take-up spool increases. Standardization prevented this peculiarity from having any impact on the playback of a spool recorded on a different machine, but audible consequences can result from substantially altering the original length of a recorded wire by excisions or by dividing it up onto multiple spools.