Loved my 8 track, pop it in and it would not stop til pulled out 😁
had a few fave, Styx, paradise theatre, grand illusion, II,
Eagles, the long run
billy Joel, 42nd st.
ac/dc, high voltage, highway to hell
kiss, destroyer
judas priest, sin after sin,
humble pie- eat it
pop one in, and play all night, til sick, then put in another.
sound was fine through my old Jensen speakers, I think the amp was a sears (Mca) or something receiver, worked just fine.
only gripe was the splitting of the song in 2 parts from 1,2,3, or 4 programs.
Upgraded to a bitchin Wollensack recordable 8 track player, champagne gold color, meters, every bell & whistle, amazing unit, been Saran wrapped after cleaning for past 38 years.
still have box of 8 tracks, cassettes, , and a couple reel to reel albums, 1 Hendrix, and one Joplin.
I liked them.
do I want them back, no. Cassettes were a godsend, as well as my LP records.
I see some 8tracks on eBay sometimes for 30-50$, I laugh and move on.
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my friend had a pioneer home deck, it really sounded decent. continuous play was nice.
still the format was totally flawed. 3 spontaneous interruptions per title when the head moved to the next track. bulky footprint and low density per minute of music.
i remember hearing david bowie for the first time...
"suffragette citay, who hi, my suffragette citay,......... awwwww wam.................click..............click................bam thank you mam"
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That makes me think that most people might consider talking hifi with a die hard audiophile a form of hell on earth. It can even drive me somewhat bonkers sometimes.
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8 track was an advancement at the time in the early 70s mostly in regards to how easy it was to pop an 8 track into a player which could cost as little as less than $30 in the day for a small portable device. Could be at home or portable on the road or in the car. Compare that to playing a record or reel to reel tape. The first recordings I bought with my own money were 8 tracks, though I quickly moved on. Sound quality was as good as most anything else comparable most people actually had. Then the much more versatile but also far more delicate cassette tape took over. So it was an advancement but one whose time came and went quickly.
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@nonoise
When I first read the header of this thread, I thought it was going to be something along the lines of what we audiophiles are in store for when we do get to hell.
I think hell will be worse. We'll be trapped in discussions exclusively focused on speaker bracing, DAC chip comparisons, isolation materials, and whether the crappy electrical wires in our walls make all power cords a waste of money.
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P.S. Yes 4 tracks came before 8 tracks.
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Haven't posted in some time, but had to respond to this post. I have to disagree to the bobbergman post. My 4 track was superior in many ways to my Panasonic 8 track player/recorder. Having only 4 bands on a tape the same width as an 8 track, there no hearing overlap of 2 tracks, the totally annoying changing tracks in the middle of the song. It was a Kraco (sp?) player and most cartridges were made by Muntz. Can't remember it ever 'eating a tape' either. I did like painstakingly recording various songs on my Panasonic 8 track and timing them to end correctly. Manufacturers preferred the 8 track because it only used half the tape length. I'd been buying LP's for some time, but you couldn't play them in the car. I also acquired an ac/dc converter to play them at home. Sounded great thru my Lafayette speakers circa 1968. Good times indeed.
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desktopguy -- The way I remember it, 4 Track cartridges and players existed before 8 Track ones. My sister had one in her Mustang.
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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.
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Such a funny Title on post. They were great in cars and only 1 of 50 spewed tape out all over the place.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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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Dekay-
ah youth, simpler times, those were the days, no? ;)
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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.
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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???
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As bad as 8 track was, it was an improvement over the 4 track.
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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
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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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Growing up in the 60's the 8 track was all the rage. I also remember that leaving your tapes in your car for too long in hot Texas melted the the idler wheel in the cartridge and the unit ate your tape...!
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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..... ;)
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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.
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Amusing discussion. Next VHS vs. Beta. Audio cassettes were not a tape loops.
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Since audio cassettes seem to be coming back into favor, will we see a resurgence of 8-tracks, and maybe VHS for videos? 🤣
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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.
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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
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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.
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When I first read the header of this thread, I thought it was going to be something along the lines of what we audiophiles are in store for when we do get to hell.
All the best,
Nonoise
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Hilarious Dekay! Made my day! Thanks
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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.
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I had a friend with an eight track player and at the time I thought it sounded great.Better than my cassette deck:-) A pleasant memory.
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8-track was superseded by a superior format and the audio industry's attitude about it was "let us never speak of it again." I actually owned a PlayTape cassette machine at one time, and boy did that format get dropped down the Memory Hole quick.
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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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And you could pick used 8 track cartridges that drivers threw out their car windows on the shoulder of just about any street. A quick tape splice or a rewind with a pencil and you were good to go.
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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.
Audiophile system and sound quality? Heck, I don't think I ever heard the term audiophile back then, let alone able to define it. But when I cranked up that quad BOC tape after smoking an illegal substance I was immersed in a very enjoyable musical experience.
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I remember installing an under dash slide mount Pioneer 8track in my mom's 73 mercury cougar. Put the huge pioneer speakers on the rear window deck. Cut my teeth with Black Sabbath and LZ. good times ☺️. Greg
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The fact that they would switch tracks in the middle of a tune, made them a big no for me!
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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”.
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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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Horrible dynamic range, horrible frequency response, horrible s/n ratio, double tracking .... so to answer your question, NO. 🤣✌🏻
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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.
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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. .
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missing ehen it went extinct?
I don’t believe that intelligent individuals ponder this.
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The 8-Track was pretty much responsible for me coming close to acing my ACT/SAT tests.
Remembering which matchbook(s) and where to place it/them for each 8-Track (while stoned) was quite a mental workout.
DeKay
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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.
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The worst consumer audio format ever, and by a wide margin.
Agreed!
Mike
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What other audio technology allows you to listen to two songs at the same time? Yes, 8-tracks were portable, but you always needed a matchbook handy to tweak the head position.
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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.
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