8-tracks: Sound good or awful?

My mother had one of those adapters for the 8-track deck in her '79 Cordoba. It always made cassettes run a little bright (fast), and I found the pitch to be more than a little unsteady. Hers only fast-forwarded the tape as well. As a child, I thought it was a neat gadget which was later used in a portable 8-track player my uncle had given me. It was a Sears model that unfolded out of a suitcase-like tote. All the control knobs, circuitry and mechanics were behind the left channel (which thus carried all the weight), and the right channel was just a passive speaker. It sounded horrible, though I could see how it would've been convenient for its time.

8-track as a medium provided my first childhood disappointment. My mother had one cartridge in particular that I would play over and over whenever we were in the car going somewhere. When I received that portable deck I'd play it all the time around the house as well. Eventually it started to wear out and the tape began slipping badly. At 5 years old, I was devastated. After that, I stuck to vinyl because I was too scared to get attached to another 8-track cartridge.

 

I have a very nice Zenith 8-Track player used with my Pioneer SX-1050 rig and the tapes actually sound very good.

I replace the foam and completely clean the cart prior to playing the first time (whenever I buy a used 8-Track).

They're fun.

 

I still miss our Cutlass. Really, it was a pretty solidly made car. Driving it was the first time I felt "at home" in a car...you know, how you can feel like you and the car move as one? Never got the hang of a jeep or minivan, but that car...

Likewise on my cousin's. The Oak Ridge Boys hit intervals I didn't know they were capable of.

Our first tape to take the hit was Sing It Again, Rod, which lasted from 1974 to 1979, followed shortly after by The Best of Bachman-Turner Overdrive - So Far which made it from 1976 to 1979. (Something about tapes on the Mercury label, I guess.) The latter found me devestated, but the former...well, let's say Mom tended to play things so much that burnout was inevitable. (Likewise with the Moody Blue album by Elvis, which she played so much that it fell apart within the year. I should be thankful for small miracles.)

 

I had thousands of 8 tracks as a kid and most of them sounded fine,especially the ones I mixed for people.

 

Interesting that you mention that. We always think of "mixtapes" as being cassettes, or occasionally you'll find people that did them on open reel.

Not to hijack, but I wonder how many of our 8-track fans here used that as a medium for mixtapes...? (And should I start another thread? I'd almost like to see songlists for those.)

 

I've made my own compilations either various or single artist per tape.

 

That is the EXACT same one I have. I purchased it NEW / OLD STOCK believe it or not just last year from a guy in Hawaii. 100% factory sealed. The petroleum based drive-band had completely turned to goo over the past 35 years. It cleaned up really nice and was replaced with a new one and it plays perfect.

 

Awful

I never owned many 8 tracks. I'm really not certain why. My oldest brother had an 8-track player in his car and I remember what a hassle it was finding a song and as many have already said the frequent channel changes. I had LPs and went directly to cassettes. My first car had an 8-track player in it when I bought it but I replaced it immediately with a cassette player. To be honest I didn't know any such thing as an 8-track recorder existed. With a half decent cassette deck you could get some really nice copies of your LPs for use in the car. That was my primary reason for making cassette copies and compilations. With 8-tracks and cassettes existing at the same time I don't know why anyone would choose the 8-track quite frankly!

 

8-tracks were a medium of convenience, and that's all. Their shortcomings and flaws were overlooked because they were just so darn handy. 8-tracks certainly were capable of good fidelity at 3.75 IPS, but they just never bothered to develop it into a high-fidelity format like they did with cassettes. Too bad, a CrO2 8-track would have been killler.

 

What if any advantage did the 8-track have over the cassette?

 

To name a couple of things: twice the tape speed of cassettes, more durable tape (although the splice tape and other parts deteriorated more than on cassettes). There were a lot of disadvantages!

 

Other than the linear speed difference, there wasn't much more you could do with it. That pinch roller mechanism would always be the limiting factor because you couldn't get anything else "in the holes" to move the tape in a more stable manner. For example, cassettes were ONLY designed originally to be a dictation medium. However, given the relatively open architecture of the cassette shell, clever manufacturers were able to insert dual capstans into the shell and isolate the tape from the shell's mechanical shortcomings. Add to that the implementation of Dolby noise reduction and chrome tape and you were able to wring every last bit of audio out of its' decidedly low-fi heritage. Actually, the grandaddy of the 8-track stood a better chance of achieving audio quality. The 4-track was a staple in radio stations for quite a while. It got around the lousy pinch roller mechanism by having a very large hole in the bottom of the shell into which the player would insert its' own pinch roller. You still had the impending failure mode of the endless loop tape configuration but you stood a better chance of a stable transport....at least until the tape lubrication wore out and the thing started to drag and squeal.....but then, that's a "whale" of a problem.

 

I just did an after-the-fact Wikipedia search for the 4-track and found out that it also had the advantage of running at 7.5ips as well so it REALLY had some advantages. However, it was designed for radio spots and commercials and was usually limited to mono playback:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fidelipac

 

If you heard what cassettes sounded like in the late 60s and early 70s, 8 track was far superior.

I was given an 8 track recorder as a gift and the tapes I made sounded pretty damn good - in my car.

The state of car audio back then was sorely lacking so everything sounded pretty decent. I never listened to 8 tracks in my house - just LPs, on my hand me down Scott tube receiver and AR4 speakers. Not exactly a sparkling combo for RnR.

 

If you mean store bought cassettes around that time I agree. Unlistenable in my opinion. I was floored when the very first time I copied an LP to cassette it sounded like an audiophile recording in comparison.

 

I had a Boss Mustang with a factory 8-track AM radio.

Great idea 4 songs at the touch of a button.

At home I had an 8 track/player recorder and made some good tapes.

Seemed to have lost them all after a while.... They just disappeared.

 

You'd be suprised how good a well made 8-track recorder and a quality tape could sound for home use. My dad had a Wollensack 8-track recorder and in the late '70s I used to tape FM concerts and LPs with it using quality Maxell tape. Those tapes sounded great back then. And they still sound great today! I still have that Wollensack....it still runs perfectly and has never needed to be serviced.

 

The sound quality of 8-track tapes is variable. At best, they sound about as good as an old prerecorded cassette. At worst, they don't sound like anything at all (although you might get a very gurgled but perceptible music track if you put some pressure on the right spot of the cartridge).

The last time I visited my grandparents, I cranked up an 8-track of Aerosmith's Rocks on the RCA console stereo in their basement.

 

Plus they were in a constant state of self-destruction with that endless loop configuration. Combine that with being used in car players (heat, dirt, etc.) and you had a limited life expectancy.

 

Yeah. The problem with the older radio station (NAB) carts was when operators dropped them, the graphite "pencil leads" glued to the tape turntable would break and fall out. Such carts would eventually jam in the machine. Newer cart designs tended to be a bit more reliable. Maybe Neko Case has some interesting comments about NAB carts. IIRC, she revealed in an interview with Bob Edwards that she worked a while at BSW repairing carts for radio stations...

BTW broadcast (NAB) carts did indeed run at 7.5 IPS and had either 2-track (mono audio + cue track) or 3-track (stereo audio + cue track) heads. The cue track carried control tones, 1KHz marking the "cue" point at the beginning of the audio whee the cart would stop after playing, ready for the next play, 150 Hz marking the end of the audio to start the next event in automation systems, 8 KHz for user applications, and NAB FSK data logging for automated logging printers.

 

Sound awful, but I love em anyway!!!

 

Based on one experience, I'll give 'em a 'good'.

Had a little no-name portable when I was in the Navy in the early 70s... sounded pretty OK thru its stereo speakers... sounded real darn good thru (cheap) cans, however.

 

My late uncles had several of the Radio-Shack 8-track player/recorder units back in the day....when I was allowed to use one of them I did used to do some recordings on it for a time, and it was cool for the most part. But one of the main things that really annoyed me on that unit was that sometimes, when it came time to switch channels, it skipped one and went right to next one! Talking about irritating lol.

Then there was the problem with misaligned heads, where you would hear half of program 2 while 1 was still playing, things like that.

My remaining living uncle let me have his best unit....still a RS unit but it ran much nicer and had Dolby on it. Plus the channel switch mechanism was much quieter. I still have the units to this day and they still operate. IIRC I still have some replacement belts that I bought several years ago.

And, the last time I remembered seeing blank 8-track tapes for sale was when RS was selling them new back in the early-mid 90's.....I sure stocked up on those lol. I haven't really played any 8-tracks since now but for vintage value I will definitely hold on to them. They have their place in audio history.

 

Discrete QUAD

 

I guess it's like any technology. Overall, it was reasonably good in it's day, but IMHO, I think the cassette was better (for many of the reasons mentioned, "part 1 and part 2" splicing of songs, jamming tape loop, inability to rewind the tape, etc). I do play around with 8 track tapes occasionally for the fun of it (simply because I have a few freebie players and sometimes get tapes for free). Sure, the quality is often not nearly as good as the LP counterparts, but it's interesting just to be able to listen to them "as they were" (good or bad). In fact, just today, I was listening to a few cassettes I got for free and they had their issues, too (a few sounded reasonably good, albeit less clear than comparable LP or CD issues, one was riddled with sound "dropouts" and yet another had severe magnetic damage - half-erased, unlistenable). Oh well, it was what it was (and it is what it is).