Quadraphonic 8-tracks

I had a system in the early 1970s, but only a couple of tapes. I do recall they sounded pretty compelling. I recall having Ten Years After "A Space In Time" and a few others. They were hard to come by and expensive, as I remember, and when you played them in a regular 8-track player with only 2 speakers hooked up, you got blank patches of sound.

It astounds me what these tapes go for on eBay these days, though. Fifty bones for Mac Davis!! Anybody remember a quad tape that was particularly stirring?

Quad 8 Track - Mac Davis | eBay

 

Some have longer songs on them, like John Lennon's "Steel And Glass" (one minute longer), some go beyond the fade and come to a cold end, like Santana's "Evil Ways", some are different takes, like Jethro Tull's "Wind Up". Some great mixes like Nilsson's "Jump Into The Fire", it's a long list of delights.

 

Nowadays it has been rendered useless by the blu-ray editions, all three Pink Floyd quad were really tripping....

 

loved 'em and still do. of course tech 45 years later is better, but in their day quad 8 tracks were a true blast and lux item.

 

This is a good reference if you're looking for quad 8-Track discographies. It's mainly US releases (vinyl is more worldwide), but it seems very complete

I've Got Four Ears To Hear You - 2019 Price Guide to Quadraphonic Rock, Pop, Soul, R&B, Folk and Jazz-Rock on Record and Tape by Tamsin Darke (Paperback) - Lulu

 

One of those tapes I'd love to hear is the quad version of War's "The World Is A Ghetto". Why this was only released as an 8-track, no vinyl, no DVD-A, no Blu Ray Audio, is beyond me. It must sound gorgeous in quad.

 

Steve, you didn't happen to hear The World Is A Ghetto in quad, did you?

 

My, the Doobies must've been quite compelling in quad as well - I think Toulouse Street got the treatment, IIRC.

 

it is insanely good. It's well mastered and well balanced as well.

 

4 doobie titles, Toulouse, Captain, Vices, Stampede. supposedly they're supposed to get the blu ray treatment but that's been in the ether a while.

 

four Doobie Brothers Quads saw release in all, on CD-4 (QuadraDisc) LP, Q4 (Quad reel to reel) & Q8 (Quad 8-track cartridge);

- Toulouse Street,
- The Captain And Me,
- What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits,
- Stampede.

they are uniformly excellent imho, nice and active and immersive surround sound.

 

snap!
oops!

 

a couple of pics of some of my Q8 carts. even though my Akai's currently out of action, i can't part with these babies! i will get the deck fixed one of these days so i can get the tapes rolling again.. though mercifully i got reasonable sounding transfers of most tapes onto the computermabob before the player went kaput there's nothing like that whirr, whizz, hiss, thud, cha-klunk you get from the real thing!

 

in spite of the love shown the Akai cr80 Dss mine went kaplooey and I'm seeing others in the same state, so I would now advise against this machine except if it's in top working order. Getting it fixed would cost you more than if you just bought another quad 8-track deck.

I keep a lookout for quad decks, and I've now got about 15 of them and have rarely paid more than $35 for any of them. ...the akai cost $150 but I wanted a recorder...
I also have the Technics quad 8-track recorder which I found in a 2nd hand store for $6.