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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?

 

128x128hilde45
curiousjim's avatar
curiousjim
4,179 posts
 

The fact that they would switch tracks in the middle of a tune, made them a big no for me!

gjohns
83 posts
 

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 

valinar
470 posts
 

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.
 

aewarren
577 posts
 

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.

dekay's avatar
dekay
5,360 posts
 

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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