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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?

 

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Showing 1 response by wolfie62

wolfie62
352 posts
 

I loved the 8-track tapes! I still have all 27 cartridges I bought 1974-1980.

 

I had a Lear 8-track player from 1976. Still have it too. Recently I played Pink Floyd’s The Wall. Honestly, it sounded every bit as good as I remember it! The Lear player has adjustable head azimuth. Tape pinch and speed is very accurate, unlike cheap 8-track players and cassette players. Then played DSOTM, followed by Elvis Costello. Sound is certainly better than my 1981 Concord cassette deck.

Problem is, WAY too many folks had CHEAP 8-track players and expect that that cheap-ass player represented the top tier technology, now complain about it.

I still love the soft “click-click” of the track change!! 
 

I remember long drives listening to 8-tracks in the ‘74 Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight and ‘76 Cadillac and ‘77 Lincoln Continental my folks had. Nirvana!!

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