While we think of the legendary Bing Crosby as a vocalist and actor, he was very instrumental in the advancement of audio recording. In the 1930's, German engineers had perfected the Magnaphone reel to reel recording system for which they held all the patents. After World War II, Crosby had asked American Electronics Engineer Alexander M. Poniatoff to investigate how he could use these systems for recording audio, instead of shellac records and video kinescopes. The result was AMPEX tape recorders, named for the first letters of Alexander M. Poniatoff and EX for Excellence on the end. Crosby was the actual company sales representative for all West Coast USA sales until 1957.