I thought 8-Track was OK for what it was at the time. I had a player in my 69’ Malibu and remember enjoying Creedence Clearwater Revival’s ”Proud Mary”. I also purchased a boom box which was dubbed “a triple threat” - 8-Track, cassette (before Dolby) and AM/FM radio. Of course, the tape broke often or got wound around the spindle but I wasn’t into Hi-Fi then and didn’t know better. After my first “mid-fi” system in 1972, I went into cassette with a purchase of a Nakamichi 1000 cassette deck with Dolby B, C and chrome. Now it’s CD’s with “perfect sound forever”.
Welcome to Hell, here's your 8-Track
Neil Postman once said,
"Anyone who has studied the history of technology knows that technological change is always a Faustian bargain: Technology giveth and technology taketh away, and not always in equal measure. A new technology sometimes creates more than it destroys. Sometimes, it destroys more than it creates. But it is never one-sided."
I'm pretty sure that we know that the 8-track was more bad than good.
Question for audiophiles here who might know -- was there anything good about 8-track technology that was lost when it went extinct? And what was that good, audio-wise, specifically?