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The Magnetophon K1 changed everything, but the real revolution came with AC bias, which removed the hiss. This made the recording practically indistinguishable from live sound. During World War II, this confused Allied intelligence: intercepting late-night broadcasts from Germany, they could not understand how a symphony orchestra could perform live in the middle of the night or during bombing raids, unaware that they were hearing a high-fidelity magnetic recording. For composers, tape turned time into space: 76 centimeters of tape equaled one second of music, allowing them to cut, splice, and reverse audio like film directors.

Ironically, electronic music owes its rapid commercial development to a pop star's laziness. The first musician to invest $50,000 in Ampex for these machines was Bing Crosby. He hated performing live on radio and simply wanted to record his shows in advance so he could play golf while they aired.