I'm old enough to remember listening to 8 track but never on anything good enough to make it memorable except the hiccups,
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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I know I’ve mentioned this countless times before, but my dad was an unmitigated hi-fi nut of the WWII generation who always had to have the latest HiFi gadget or tech, from transistor electronics to stereophonic to quad to various media sources. Of course, he got into Four track cartridges and then Eight Track cartridges. Whenever his hifi shelf got too crowded he’d give me whatever he was tired of. In any case, before long I inherited an Eight Track Recorder/Player, and I got to say it was maybe the worst piece of audio technology ever brought to market. Cartridges that never failed to either unravel or stretch their tape to produce nausea-inducing wow. Frequency response made AM radio seem mellifluous. Whew! |
8-track cartridges were perceived as “great” with its convenience factor . One can compare them as such compared to preceding tech options to vinyl but that is a low bar. .Vinyl ruled, survived, and thrives today for intuitive reasons. They were not a mainstream popular home recorder option for the masses, and were a generally limited audio performer in a continuous tape loop fixed cartridge format, that arose and died in the 70’s (…along with CB radios…). They were primarily designed and suited for fast tunes plunk-in convenience. (Think mostly in your cars and early era portable options) . They were not mainstream home audio performers to compete with or challenge vinyl. They were thankfully quickly superseded in analogue tape format by cassettes an improved tape loop format in all of audio performance, build, features, and utility, Cassettes finally permitted an improved home recording option for the masses and ushered in the genesis of mid-fi and early hi-fi performance level recording and playback machines. The 8-track cartridge audio performance was generally strictly bottom level in its Jurassic era capabilities. It presented an overall uneven and spiky, and poor frequency performance curve with a severely rolled off top-end at its best. The 8-track format popularity and its very existence was short lived (…dare I say thankfully …) that appeals to a limited cohort of purely nostalgia fans.
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@akg_ca Thank you so much for your very informative post. I suspected this was the case, but given the relatively larger size of the actual tape in the 8 track (compared to cassettes) I was curious as to whether they had some advantage over other formats -- and I see that question answered in your post. Appreciate the time you took to write it. |
Their advantage was portability. You seem to think that vinyl was better in the 60s. Not for the masses. Few had decent TTs. The LP12 didn’t show up until ’72. Only an Elvis mobile had a turntable in it. (See the Nashville Hall of Fame by a Nudie mobile) That format probably worked worse than 8-track while it was moving If you were there you sure don’t act like it. Vinyl freaks around here say it’s the best formt. Stay home with your vinyl young chickens Meanwhile I’ll enjoy any music I want while on the go. You can’t criticize 8-track factoring in the times. I heard some albums then that made me prefer the 8-track song order. To this day. The worst? Try wire recorders. But they were the best at the time, good enough to fool the Nazi military. |
They were primarily intended for use in automobiles and were an enormous improvement over the expensive turntables available for cars that would skip on smooth roads, much less bumpy ones. Those played the bottom side of a 45. The tape was a continuous loop that came off the inside and then wrapped around the outside. Hard on the tape but an ingenious design courtesy of Bill Lear. The original Learjet tape housings were assembled with screws and could be internally cleaned. Later cartridges were hard to open without destroying them. Head azimuth was a real problem, very few playback decks had adjustable azimuth to minimize crosstalk and improve treble response. The matchbook system mentioned above was much more common. They had a pretty short heyday, like many others I switched to a Sony cassette player in 1970 or ’71. Lear was an incredible guy, struck out repeatedly but hit some homers, too. Motorola and Learjet did pretty well. Motorola made the first car radios; people said they would distract drivers and cause wrecks. The 8 track was a segue from his car radio concept of the 1930s. When he died he was working on a steam automobile project. |
The title of this thread made me think of my "Alice Cooper Goes To Hell" 8-Track. Anyway, I remember back in th early to mid 70's getting a portable cassette player for X-mas one year. In the little town we lived in, I could find very few prerecorded cassettes. (I did wind up with a couple by Jim Croce & Tony Orland & Dawn and some pirated looking stuff by CCR & Johnny Cash and Three Dog Night and I ordered some stuff that was advertised on TV, but there sure wasn't a lot in that town available. So I joined Longines Symphonette Record Club and ordered 12 cassettes, but the ba$tards sent me 12 8-tracks. I sent them back and told them that they screwed up, and they sent me 12 more 8-tracks! Anyway, in '77 I put an 8-track player ( the first of a few) and started buying 8-trracks. . |
Dekay sure LOL, cough cough, shoved in just right on the underside of the case. Denatured wood alcohol & q-tips to clean the heads. And the hokey vinyl covered cases for them that looked like cheap luggage. Anything detroit built had 6x9's in the rear window deck. You knew when you bought a double length tape like Allman Bros Fillmore East it was surely going to be short lived. Nostalgic and fun times. |
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!! |
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”. |
In the 70's I had quadraphonic system; 4 channel Harman Kardon receiver, four Sansui speakers, a BIC turntable, and four channel Akai 8 track player/ recorder. There were a number of four channel prerecorded albums available in 8 track. I had a number of them. One was a Blue Oyster Cult; can't remember which it was. |
pehare: Allman Bros Fillmore East is my most "remembered" tape along with Santana, Ten Years After, Johnny Winter and the "Magic Carpet Ride" band. I first heard a stereo cassette tape around 1971 (Advent player?) though I owned a mono cassette player/recorder (with a seperate microphone) years prior that my Grandfather gave me for X-mas. It had an onboard AM/FM radio which allowed me to record songs from radio broadcast. The 8-Track (installed in a 67 VW Bug) may have been a Kraco (sp?) or a Sound/Sonic something that came with plastic wedge shaped speakers.
DeKay
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mellifluous I learnt a new word today. I can't wait to use it in normal conversation. As Ron White once said, "It's a great day, Tater." I had an 8-track player when I was 16, given to me by my uncle a few years prior. With my first real paycheck I bought a Kenwood receiver, a whole 18wpc and connected that tape player to the Kenwood. The first tape I played was my favorite album ever, Led Zeppelin ll. That was the end of my 8-track days as the tape was immediately eaten by that damned machine. I chalked it up to bad juju. The next thing I bought was a turntable and the rest as they say was/is history. And yes, my first LP purchase was Zep ll. |
The sound quality of the prerecorded 8-tracks was pretty abysmal but then so were many of the prerecorded cassettes. One thing that bugged me was the LONG and totally unnecessary fade-out and fade-in that made the track change seem like some elaborate, mysterious process. Always striving to improve the quality of the audio experience, I decided to buy an 8-track recorder and tape selections from LP. Not only did the sound quality greatly improved, but people were astounded that my tapes didn't do the fade. I remember the matchbook trick being used to provide better contact between the capstan and pinch roller, otherwise the tape would run slow or warble. It didn't help that the tape had a healthy dose of lubricant that helped it ease it out at the hub. This would, of course, contaminate the capstan and pinch roller, so it was a constant battle to maintain enough friction to drive it. Then, to make things even worse, some of the tape manufacturers began making the pinch rollers out of hard plastic! Among the struggles to keep these things moving there would eventually come the inevitable "eaten tape". After fishing several feet of tape out of the player, you then had a tape that couldn't be played unless you knew the secret to getting that tape to wind back in the cartridge. A sharp tug on the supply side of the tape would spin the reel with enough force to snap the tape back in the cartridge. |
Just remembered a guy (Roger) I occasionaly hung out with in the 80's. He had an 8-Track player in his old Dodge Dart, but he only had "one" tape which was David Bowie "Diamond Dogs". When we played darts @ Kings Head and The Cat and the Fiddle - Roger (born in the American South) pulled off a British accent that fooled the Bri'ts we were playing with. He wasn't very good @ darts, but it was worth losing just to see/hear the show.
DeKay |
Being that I'm an old relic, I can vouch for the 8-track. I splurged on a quality player for my 72 240Z. It far outperformed the cassette deck I had SQ wise. It had an adjustable head and more power than the pos cassette deck I had. It never gobbled a tape....unlike the cassette player. If I'm correct, a wider tape gives better SQ? I don't miss it.....but I do miss the 240Z. |
i remember working in a radio shack store in the late 70s. we took delivery of some new "clarinette" model 8-track compacts, put on a carpenters tape and were surprised by the vivid sound quality [better trebles than any cassette i'd heard up to that point] coming from those speakers, with an absolute minimum of background noise. they had another 8-track player in the store, one that recorded also and had dolby NR, it sounded thin and dull in comparison. so i figured that this had to be a happy accident of matching tape azimuth between the carpenters tape and the clarinette player. |
8 track was a brief step up for my brother, who started out with a car LP player. As long as the road was smooth (recently re-paved preferable), it almost worked. You could almost see the vinyl being carved out of the grooves... The 'reverb unit' that was previously attached to the Chevys' dash radio was absolutely hilarious, tho'... Hit any bump, manhole cover, or debris rewarded you with a loud "BOIIIINNNGGggg" that would make me laugh like a hyena while he'd get pissed. The follow-up 8 track was a great respite to all that....until the tape would stretch and I'd get relegated to digging it out of the player. After losing a few carts, he'd moved on to the 396 Chevelle, whose engine and exhaust made more pleasant noises..... ;) |
It had many problems, as mentioned above, but try to buy one for the classic car you are restoring and you would think it was a high-end piece from ARC or something. They are VERY difficult to find in ANY condition, much less looking good and actually working! Cheers! Remember these? Who needs separates, right?
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emrof: Your "clarinette" post just jogged my mind and I think that my 8-Track was branded Clarion (new model in the summer of 1971). I sold the 67 bug to a distant cousin in the early summer of 77 and when he brought it back Aug/Sept so that I could teach him how to set the timing (trial and error by driving/adjusting it as it no longer performed optimally when set to spec with a static light) he had an 8-Track "convertor cartridge" for the player that accepted cassette tapes. I had purchased a new Honda Civic with radio only (just sold my 69 Opel GT that had a cassette deck as I needed a "bigger" car to move to the West Coast) and gave him all of my "road" cassette tapes. We didn't realize that we were "distant kin" until he came back and we hung out talking for 2-3 hours (I also polished/reset the valves and showed him how to clean/oil and reuse the gaskets). It turned out that we used to visit his parent's farm when I was very young to purchase and cut our X-Mas tree (some 16 years prior). I told my father about it and he replied "your'e shitting me - really?". Many of my family "relationships" have always been a mystery to me in that when little I thought that my great and great/great grandmothers on one side were sisters.
DeKay |
Also, 8 tracks played at 3.75 ips technically making them better than cassettes. My first player was a Pioneer. It made a loud "clicking" sound when I changed tracks. I remember pushing the button late into the night (I was 15 years old). My Dad yelled from his bedroom "STOP IT ALREADY"! Now I'm feeling sentimental. I wonder if they make bell bottom pants in my size??? |
Over the course of my audio existence I’ve had Reel-to-Reel, Four Track Cartridge, Eight Track Cartridge, Cassette, CD, and Direct-to-Bits recording media. I’ve spent more than my share of time making recordings off the radio, and off of various borrowed LPs & Singles. I also made recordings of records I’d gotten sick of and wanted to sell for pocket cash. Anyway, of the bunch, in terms of SQ I gotta tell ya that Eight Track was the proverbial ugh-o-rama. And oh yeah. over the years I have made many live recordings of me and my musician mates. |
Saw/heard many, back in the day, but: never desired/owned one. Still believe it to be an ingenious use for the Mobius Strip. Can’t think of another application*, outside of some obsolete typewriter ink carts, computer tapes and conveyor belts. Can you? *Aside from the studies of Math/Physics Topology, that is.
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Question: If the Nakamichi brothers had designed and built an 8-track player/recorder with autoazimuth adjustment would we still be listening to 8-tracks today? What would they have named it? A little trivia: A full 20 years after Pioneer announced that whey were no longer going to build an 8-track player, you could still order the 8-track option in a new Lincoln Continental. |
Ok, here's what I remember about them. They played at 3and 3/4 IPS. Cassette's played at 1 and 7/8. The Radio Shack car cassette player I had was bad for wow. My friends 8-track was better sounding for about a year till I upgraded and got a Pioneer cassette deck. Then the cassette was far superior. After I got a home cassette recorder my friend switched and didn't look back. I still remember my first listen to Dark Side on 8-track in friends old beat up Corolla. Thanks for the great memories! By the way, I miss my 240Z as well. |
Yes, there was something good about 8-tracks. At a moment in time when the standard audio format was the LP, there were no real portable/automotive options beyond FM & AM radio. Good as those were/still are, something was missing. Much like VHS videotape, 8-track tape players failed in all manner of resolution and usability details, but at least served to get the portability ball rolling. Next came cassette tapes, a huge leap sonically and technologically...then Walkmans and the rest is history. |
In 1983 or so I got a good deal on a 1976 Monte Carlo with a built in 8 track. Whenever I listen to A Remark You Made on the Heavy Weather album it takes me back to a specific wintery late night, driving through the slush along side a steel mill with all its smoke and steam and lights and smells, with Weather Report providing the sound track. It was about 2:00 a.m. It was…perfect. |
