One reason cassettes won the format war was that 8 Tracks, due to their limitation on how much can be put on each channel, would often split a song into two parts-part one was on the end of one channel, and part two was on the next channel. Cassettes didn’t have that limitation for the most part (yes, I know that there were times cassettes did that too, but overall far less often than 8 Tracks). You can understand that someone wouldn’t want to frequently hear songs split in two just to change tracks. But, IMHO, the real reason cassettes won the format war was their size. They were simply smaller (and more compact as the name states) than 8 Tracks. This made it easier to use and store in your car. Once the sound quality of cassettes improved, there was really no reason to continue with 8 Tracks. I’m sure many people who watch your channel have seen Techmoan’s videos about cassettes. If someone hasn’t, it’s worth checking out, for he goes more into the details of the background behind cassettes. But nothing says 70s more than 8 Tracks........🙂🙂🙂
The reason cassettes won the war was the sound on them improved as tape technology improved. They were also more comfortable for use as they had rewind/fast forward features, and yes they were smaller and more appealing in looks. Initially compact cassettes (1/8'') provided only low sound quality and they were created for that quality initially and for dictation purposes as basic voice recorders. It was in the 80's that tapes got much better and replaced everything. CDs were of much higher quality (ultimate quality) but they lacked the option of recording which meant you could not record/assemble a collection of songs you are listening to. This was important as most prerecorded CDs and cassettes were albums and on an album there's usually not much to listen to except for a a couple of songs. This was later solved by offering CD changers, so that, say, 5 CDs can be loaded and you can choose songs on them in your car or home stereo system. It was more important for cars, as it is extremely inconvenient to load and eject CDs after a few songs when driving. *PS. I didn't have any cassettes with split songs. Maybe those were a low quality pirated stuff or done by the users themselves. Most people cannot do things properly when it comes to electronics, recordings, computers and stuff like that.* That's how it happened with sheeple back in the day: They would load a prerecorded tape or CD and a blank tape and press record, and if the deck had autoreverse (probably did), the songs at the end would be split for sure as the prerecorded CD or tape had different length (playing time). Virtually all recorders/players had an autoreverse feature except for the cheapest ones. And recording from a CD onto tape in auto mode would automatically lead to such splits when you assemble your play list on a tape. By the way, a setback was that my play lists could not be shuffled on tapes and it was inconvenient to repeat a specific song as it was difficult to rewind to the exact spot where it was beginning. Nowadays things have improved a lot but those were the funny ole days. Manufactures were stupid not to offer, say, special rewinds, like 4 minutes, 3.5 minutes rewinds but that how it was. I rewound manually: stop, rewind, than play the song you want to hear one more time in a row. Everybody did that back in the day :) Later, in the 90's came newer systems that detected pauses between songs to rewind and repeat but they were not perfect at all, unfortunately.
The Pink Floyd's Animals album has a unique presentation as opposed to the other formats the album is on. All other formats have the tracks Pigs Part 1 at the start and Pigs Part 2 at the end. The 8 track version has the two tracks tied together by a unique solo by Snowy White.
Those are the fun ones to hear. The Beatles Sgt. Pepper on the "Sgt. Pepper (Reprise)" track has the ending edited to repeat a second time to fill up time on that Program and avoid blank tape. It's like a little Easter Egg the first time you hear it.
This video takes me back. I had 4-track and 8-track tape players in my 1965 Mustang. Some good memories of listening to the stereo. Also, bad memories of the tape player eating the tapes! These formats had their faults. I commend you on your accurate and interesting presentation of 8-track stereo history and technology.
I remember listening to 8 track as a kid in the mid 70s. We had Marie Osmond, The Jackson 5, Elvis Country, Guy Lombardo Christmas, Thank God it's Friday Soundtrack. After 1979 we bought records and cassettes.
that really is great....we used this kind of thing at the radio for years...jingles etc....short continual loop tape carts.....very nice purchase you made there and like you say,the carts are so cheap....cannot go wrong.....great video
I never really got into 8 track. I was more into cassettes. However, as an electronic tech, I did repair a lot of 8 track players and the tapes as well. Really very simple : )
I installed an eight track with the first wired remote in our 1965 VW Beetle. It had two buttons on/off & track change. And a six foot cord on the remote. I had the player in the glovebox and the cord strung out across under dash to my driver's vent window lock. Damn I thought it was cool... Life was good... LOL (Have you ever heard of one with a wired remote?) THANKS............
Very interesting video. I've never owned an 8 track player myself but I have seen a few videos on these things and it's great to see one still working. For a while now I've been wondering whether to get one of these players and some 8 tracks myself, but then when I think of the maintenance stuff with it like cleaning the tape head, alignment issues, repairing the cassettes etc, I kinda get put off. I wouldn't know how to get to the head to clean it for a start, then sometimes the foam pads on the cassettes would need replacing, but I'm sure that would be an easy fix though. I think the one thing that would really be annoying for me is where some songs would be split in half when you get half a song on one track and then the other half on the next track. I would like to get an 8 track at some point, just to get the experience of them and to see what they were really like. I might get one one day, who knows. Thanks for sharing this.
Those are non-existent issues which can only occur if you listen to one cassette for way too many hours, like, 50 -100 hours: The tape gets worn and issues might start to pop up (master tapes and quality compact cassette tapes last longer than 100 hours for sure - the same for 8-tracks). The machines themselves should last much, much longer, like, thousands of hours. Cleaning heads is not something you should often do. If you rewind/fast forward a lot (compact cassettes) in play mode, the mechanism (belt) wears way faster, and the machine breaks down eventually (maybe after 200-300 hours). If it is not a sensor mechanism, and you press rewind/fast forward during playback, you will damage it right away. It means you should always stop playback before rewinding/forwarding, unless it's a sensor mechanism that allows it but still will wear off much, much faster if you rewind with the belt engaged. As to 8-tracks, there's no rewinding/fast forwarding (maybe some semblance of fast forwarding), so no fast wear can happen. No need to worry. The only problem is you might get a very worn machine from the get-go. They all work pretty fine in my opinion. Just don't get stuff that is too worn and on its last legs, and things will work pretty nice. So your concerns might only pertain to tape decks, while 8-tracks should be fine. There's only once concern in reality: belt on compact cassette players. The rest is fine and you should not worry at all. I mean most of compact cassette players have belt problems as people misuse or abuse the player through fast/forwarding and rewinding, especially when it's done during playback. It spells doom and gloom for the machine, even a sensor-controlled tape machine.
I recently went to an auction and got SO MANY blank 8 tracks. I got a few pre recorded ones but I probably got like 40 blanks for I think about 5 or 6 bucks.
After inheriting my grandparents 8 tracks (no one else wanted them) I actually bought a couple from an antique mall yesterday. I got the soundtrack to the movie Lady Sings The Blues and I got Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass Greatest Hits. It's a neat format. I'm fascinated by old obsolete stuff like that.
I'm in Australia too. Not many 8 track tape cartridges or players in Australia. I've got a couple players still. Had a couple more. Still have a collection of about 40 mostly good rock and pop 8 track cartridges from the 70's, Beatles red compilation plus a few Rolling stones, Bee gees, Pink Floyd Dark Side Of The Moon, Loud Reed Transformer, Best of ABBA, John Denver etc. Unfortunately most of those have seen better days with the labels ranging from bubbling to completely peeled off and they all sound very staticy and most warbley with wow and flutter, some all over the place. Some don't play at all. I used to love listening to them as the formats rather different with its quirks. I can understand them not lasting the test of time in a hot, sometimes dirty car. I'm guessing they were a fairly short lived format in Australia when all my carts are from around 72-75. I'm not sure if one might be as late as 78.
Every time a RUclips video is interupted but a commercial my mind is flown back to family road trips listening to our 8 tracks with the "click click" in the middle of the song at times!
Good old 8 tracks. I have about 40 of them. Favourite one is " In Through The Out Door" by Zep. Good ones are worth a bit. They are rarer in England than the States ( i mean the variety of different machines especially) . Would love to get a really clean recordable machine. Some niche releases on 8 track have come out in last couple of years. Happy days & hope your bush fires die down soon.
The really valuable ones are the Record Club only titles that were released after 1982 when the major labels stopped selling them. RCO titles were made in limited quantities as subscribers requested them when ordering and they eventually phased them out in 1988.
Ah yes the memories, in my formative years when I had a Lafayette quad receiver along with a cassette deck, an 8 track stereo deck through a Lafayette quad adapter, an 8 track quad recording deck, a reel to reel tape deck (a Sony I think), and a Garrard turntable with both discrete and matrix comparable cartridges. Additionally, all this stuff was channeled through a couple of A/B switches and a Russound tape monitor extender. It was a thing of beauty with a monumental tangle of rca connections (with custom length cables of course) which nobody except myself could understand! My wife would give it a clear path and make the sign of the cross as she walked by. I don't recall the brands of the 8 track players. If she ever knew how much money I spent on that stuff back then...
8 tracks are undeniably cool especially if you're nostalgic for Seventies woodgrain stuff. A nice solid tactile format, reminds me a little of the old Atari 2600 consoles and the days when a wooden housing and a chunky plastic cartridge were considered hi-tech. I recently had the opportunity to pick up an 8-track deck (with its original speakers and AM/FM radio) here in the UK for nothing, confirming your point about it not being a particularly valuable or desirable format. Came with a bunch of tapes too. The downsides are that characteristic wow and flutter and the fact that the blue used in the labels tends to dry out over time, causing the tapes themselves to look scruffy. Have you ever come across one of those huge Morse quadrophonic 'jukebox' units on your thrifting adventures? We didn't get them in the UK, but they often had an 8-track deck on the console along with the radio and turntable. Very cool looking machines. A family member in the US has one in his man cave :)
My 1st car a 1966 Chevelle had an under dash 8 track. One of my 1st 8 Tracks tapes was Pink Floyd Dark side of the Moon and it would change tracks in the middle of the guitar solo on Time. Loved my 8 Tracks but soon cassette tapes took over. Love live the 8 Track.
I came here because people in the comment section in a video of a kid questioning a cassette player. As A 2000s kid (I'm 22 now) I herd of VHS cassettes, and dial phones, but I never herd of this. Now I'm here!!! :D
Some people may know the Fidelo-pack better as a cart, which was the common name in radio. I had 8-Tracks for years, but their main problem is they are built to tighten over time and eventually self-destruct. I don't really miss them. Take care...
That difference in linear velocity is exactly why the length of the tape is so limited. The more tape you have in a system like that, the greater the differential, and the greater the tension on the tape and the internal friction of the cartridge. The general wisdom for those with 8-track recorder decks was to keep cartrige 'size' under 60 minutes if you wanted to play the tapes in your car or your portable, because the small 12VDC motors in car units (or 6V-9V in most portables!) would often struggle with the longer tapes, particularly as the tapes aged. Home decks had less of a problem with 80- and 100-minute carts because they usually had big, sturdy AC motors, but even here the longer tapes were not advised; the tension on the tape I spoke of would often cause the foil splice to fail. And recording those 8-Tracks was a pain if you wanted to avoid the CH-CHAK of the track change in the middle of a song. You had to carefully arrange your songs so that they would fit in each program, and at the same time try to minimize as much as possible the 'silent' sections of the tape. That's why some commercial 8-Tracks had a song from theLP version (or sometimes two) removed, and some 8-tracks had 'bonus' material or would repeat a song (usually the song that was most popular on the radio). And often, there was nothing for it; you had to split the song across two or more tracks (Ina Gadda Da Vida, anyone?). I loved the format, but it was a pain to work with sometimes.
These players are easy to open. You have to turn it upside down and remove the screws from the underside then grab the front plate and slide the whole mechanism out of the wooden box. Your player has a head which is held in place with a white plastic bracket. The plastic is cracked on the top where the screw holding the head in place is located. This is common for these decks. You can use some epoxy glue to repair the plastic. Otherwise the head will soon fall out of alignment. Nice video!
I've JB Welded so many of those plastic head frame brackets, I can do it in my sleep. lol The older metal head bracket frames were so much better but they had to try and save a buck in the early 70's and now it's biting us all in the ass 40-50 years later.
Eight tracks players filled a niche market as a practical way to play music in cars. The sound was quite good compared to music on noise AM radios most people had in their car. That Sound Design home player was a budget priced unit. There were higher quality units that sounded better and allowed recording your own cartridges. I have an Akai reel to reel that has a eight track player/recorder built-in. It has bias adjustment and a higher quality mechanism.
I remember when I was a kid we had a Thunderbird with an 8-track player 😂 Someone broke into our car, hot wired it and rode it around for weeks then we finally found it and our 8-track player was magically still there. We had that broke down thunderbird until about 5 years ago when we finally sold it for parts….good times with those! I remember when cassettes took over and eventually CDs…..man CDs were expensive af when they came out.
To get the 8-track out of its case, You have to unscrew the screws at the bottom and then pull the whole thing out from the front. Yeah, 8-track cartridges and units sound way better than their reputation. I was surprised at first too! My 8-track player doesn't even have a power switch. The only thing you could call a powerswitch is a leafswitch that closes its contacts when you push in a cartridge fully. The transformer is powered all the time. Maybe i should add a "real" power switch after all. Btw, this is what mine looks like. ibb.co/BqTDH0X
My dad worked in the same building as Soundesign in Jersey City , New Jersey. We had everything Soundesign in our house as a kid. Not the best quality stuff , he got a big discount.
I remember being amazed by the damn things at my great grandparent's home. I probably woke them up to the Eddie Rabbitt and Glen Campbell carts so many times. I still collect them. A ton of great, forgotten country hits that never made it to other formats around in thrift stores. Loves me some Johnny Lee and Glen! Unfortunately a great number of leftover carts are the mid-80s gospel and instrumental garbage. Sometimes a gem is out there if you look enough. Unfortunately my attempts to repair one that got eaten by the player or broke at the splice have always failed. Miserably. Soon as I open the things it's like I opened Pandora's box or a Jack in the Box. SPROING tape everywhere, and since I don't understand how the endless loop thing works, I never can rewind them back. I usually end up with a big mess of crinkled tape, or a foot or two slack for some reason, or it looks like it's supposed to but the tape doesn't move.
For my 16th birthday party, I borrowed AC/DCs Back in Black 8-track from a friend's older sister. It had just come out and we played it loud all night long! In the morning my house was trashed and the 8-track was gone. I never replaced it and I still feel bad about that. 🤷♀️ Who steals 8-tracks? Sheesh.
People love to crap all over 8 track and the quality. Granted, some of it is well deserved. But it’s much better quality, when working properly, then people give it credit for. I recently just picked up a Pioneer H-R100, that looks virtually new., off ebay. Cost me $175 U.S,, and being down in Sydney, cost me almost as much in postage. Only thing that needed to be fixed was the program selector. But I have to say, it sounds as good as ANY cassette deck I’ve ever owned. Seriously. Currently blasting Kiss’ Love Gun...
Aloha recordology, Wow ! You brought back memories . I used to sell this brand : SOUNDDESIGN at Woolworths in Ala Moana Shopping Center on the island of Oahu in the Hawaiian Islands, in the early 1970's . I also had a car unit My in dash car cassette player had a very tinny sound ,so I purchased an "in and out" under dash Craig 8-track player, this had a very full sound, of course I also had Jensen coaxial speakers at that time too, with Boston door speakers. My home unit consists of a 8-track player and recorder if I'm not mistaken I think it was Panasonic. The only bummer about 8-track tapes is if you're listening to a song it changes track sometime right between the song, and of course you couldn't play a particular certain track you would have to wait if it's between a channel. But 8tracks early on sure had a punch versus cassette tapes of course later on cassette tapes caught up and the players caught up in sound quality, I really enjoyed in the late seventies purchasing 8 tracks in The Bargain Bin or cutout bins that we called them back then. Thank you for another video looking forward to your next Mahalo ed
I’d enjoy this format more if the splices didn’t come apart! Then the fun REALLY begins there. I have a decent-ish Sanyo player/recorder and I hardly play it because of this issue. So I kinda get why they were treated like a joke on sitcoms growing up.
If you resplice with a small piece of fresh foil tape on every new tape you buy, this doesn't happen and your tapes can go for decades more without the tape being pulled into the deck and eaten. By now, these carts are over 50 years old and foil splice adhesive dries up, foam pads crumble and felt squares fall off. Repair and tune up a tape before you play it for the first time (or again after many years) and it should outlast you. :)
I ordered me some blank Columbia Magnetic 8-track tapes from eBay and they’re in good condition-Ever used blank 8-track tapes for recording music on? Also, did you know that major record companies Capitol and Columbia made 8-track blank magnetic cartridges?
Chances are your foam pressure pads were shot (mushy or crumbling) and the carts needed to be opened and those pads replaced. For good tape alignment with the head, there has to be some pressure on the tape to press up against the head or it'll float all over the place and you'll hear the other programs at the same time.
The tape head itself could need to be adjusted up/down. Now, it could be the actual recording itself that is off, but more likely the head could be ever so slightly off playing a little bit of the track before or after the one you are currently on. Usually there was some sort of access hole where you could get a screwdriver in to adjust it.
Country and Western music from the 70's is probably the peak of musical artistry. Anyway, I dont think these were at all popular in NZ. The nearest I got to one was the one was the player that my dad had in the workshop of his business when I was growing up. I dont remember it being used.
i had tiys in th attic houses the holy women and children first and the beatles on 8 track lots of rock on them my brother in late 60s every week would take us for root beer floats and play hey jude in his vw van if that dosnt screem early 70s dont know what does
Man I hate 8 tracks. Some songs I still hear the fade-out in the middle of the track in my mind. But that is a cool player and 8-tracks are part of our history.
I'm not sure why they sound as bad as they do. The tape speed is 3.75 ips and a cassette tape is 1.875 ips. The track width of the 8 track and cassette tape are exactly the same. Be careful with the splice with tapes that old because the glue gets totally dried and tape gets eaten up and looks like an accordion when you pull it out. Many feet of accordion I might add. I actually have a very fancy unit from the late 1970s made by Olson Electronics. It records, plays back, has an eject button, will automatically eject either after one program or all programs, depending how it's set. It also has a repeat function which will repeat the program and a fast forward button. It still works but I don't think it sounds that great. It just doesn't have much presence. I have an old Technics cassette deck I got about 30 years ago that has a fine bias adjust button and Dolby B/C HX Pro. With a Type I Tape, it has a frequency response of 20 to 18 kHz, with a Type II Chrome tape it is 20 to 19 kHz, and Type IV it's 20 to 20 kHz. It also has auto reverse where the head rapidly switches at 180 degrees and once in a while the head would go out of alignment and I had to adjust it. The tape deck itself if I recorded a CD into it, the sound quality of the cassette sounded extremely close to the CD, especially when using Dolby C. Thank you for sharing.
The tapes sounded bad because they usually weren't maintained. Once the foam pads start to crumble or lose their springiness, your highs are lost and you get tons of crosstalk and bleed. Also, the adhesive on those foil splices dries out and one good pull by the capstan and roller and it falls off and the tape just feeds itself into the deck until it either tangles or gets accordioned. These days, 40-50 years later, replacing the pads and cutting out and resplicing the foil makes the cartridge play and sound like night and day. I keep a bag of new drop in foam pads and a big roll of foil splice tape on hand and do tune ups on tapes that sound lousy and they sound great again. The only other reason they could sound bad is that they were played so many times and left in hot cars that the oxide on the tape wore off. These things were played to death in peoples' cars then left on dashboards or under seats until they were trashed. I've bought carts that were played at home only and after tuning them up they sound incredible, especially the early 60's Lear Jet "Flat Pack" type carts and early Ampex models (once you replace gooey melted rollers but that's another story.) Those early carts sound almost as good as open reel tapes.
Those two eight-track tapes i have the albums of those. i use to have an eight-track tape player back in the day that was giving to me for free. The thing i hated about those tapes was a song would be playing and then it would fade out and then you heard click and then it would fade back in. Mostly the rock stuff would do that. I then got rid of the player and the tapes. I didn't have a lot of tapes but i really didn't like it.
Once you get the hang of opening different styles of carts, new drop in pads and foil tape rolls can be bought online. I get mine at either 8 Track Avenue or Kate's Track Shack and tune up every cart I buy before playing it. You'd be surprised how good these tapes can sound once they're fixed right and have good pads and splices in them.
Of all the vintage formats, 8-tracks are probably the most flawed. I own a whole bunch of 8Tracks and a deck, but I hardly ever use it because the sound quality just isn't there and most of the tapes I have are problematic.
hi i had a mate neol you know the man in the uk sold a dark side of he moon for over £600 i was bidding on a box to resell the tapes on later i had the money he payed £700 uk ebay i know he made alot of money on the tapes 100% i know he was not happy with me bidding best mate told me beware never buy high price tapes there's all ways someone push up the price that's mate of the seller the man got kicked of 3 times for doing this
![OsamaSon - ik what you did last summer [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/4DIQDnu3mr4/mqdefault.jpg)
Man I love 8 tracks! I own over one hundred of them and they all still play extremely well.
awesome
Can’t believe that the 8 track lasted so long lol
One reason cassettes won the format war was that 8 Tracks, due to their limitation on how much can be put on each channel, would often split a song into two parts-part one was on the end of one channel, and part two was on the next channel. Cassettes didn’t have that limitation for the most part (yes, I know that there were times cassettes did that too, but overall far less often than 8 Tracks). You can understand that someone wouldn’t want to frequently hear songs split in two just to change tracks.
But, IMHO, the real reason cassettes won the format war was their size. They were simply smaller (and more compact as the name states) than 8 Tracks. This made it easier to use and store in your car. Once the sound quality of cassettes improved, there was really no reason to continue with 8 Tracks.
I’m sure many people who watch your channel have seen Techmoan’s videos about cassettes. If someone hasn’t, it’s worth checking out, for he goes more into the details of the background behind cassettes.
But nothing says 70s more than 8 Tracks........🙂🙂🙂
The reason cassettes won the war was the sound on them improved as tape technology improved. They were also more comfortable for use as they had rewind/fast forward features, and yes they were smaller and more appealing in looks. Initially compact cassettes (1/8'') provided only low sound quality and they were created for that quality initially and for dictation purposes as basic voice recorders. It was in the 80's that tapes got much better and replaced everything. CDs were of much higher quality (ultimate quality) but they lacked the option of recording which meant you could not record/assemble a collection of songs you are listening to. This was important as most prerecorded CDs and cassettes were albums and on an album there's usually not much to listen to except for a a couple of songs. This was later solved by offering CD changers, so that, say, 5 CDs can be loaded and you can choose songs on them in your car or home stereo system. It was more important for cars, as it is extremely inconvenient to load and eject CDs after a few songs when driving.
*PS. I didn't have any cassettes with split songs. Maybe those were a low quality pirated stuff or done by the users themselves. Most people cannot do things properly when it comes to electronics, recordings, computers and stuff like that.* That's how it happened with sheeple back in the day: They would load a prerecorded tape or CD and a blank tape and press record, and if the deck had autoreverse (probably did), the songs at the end would be split for sure as the prerecorded CD or tape had different length (playing time). Virtually all recorders/players had an autoreverse feature except for the cheapest ones. And recording from a CD onto tape in auto mode would automatically lead to such splits when you assemble your play list on a tape. By the way, a setback was that my play lists could not be shuffled on tapes and it was inconvenient to repeat a specific song as it was difficult to rewind to the exact spot where it was beginning. Nowadays things have improved a lot but those were the funny ole days. Manufactures were stupid not to offer, say, special rewinds, like 4 minutes, 3.5 minutes rewinds but that how it was. I rewound manually: stop, rewind, than play the song you want to hear one more time in a row. Everybody did that back in the day :) Later, in the 90's came newer systems that detected pauses between songs to rewind and repeat but they were not perfect at all, unfortunately.
The Pink Floyd's Animals album has a unique presentation as opposed to the other formats the album is on. All other formats have the tracks Pigs Part 1 at the start and Pigs Part 2 at the end. The 8 track version has the two tracks tied together by a unique solo by Snowy White.
Those are the fun ones to hear. The Beatles Sgt. Pepper on the "Sgt. Pepper (Reprise)" track has the ending edited to repeat a second time to fill up time on that Program and avoid blank tape. It's like a little Easter Egg the first time you hear it.
This video takes me back. I had 4-track and 8-track tape players in my 1965 Mustang. Some good memories of listening to the stereo. Also, bad memories of the tape player eating the tapes! These formats had their faults. I commend you on your accurate and interesting presentation of 8-track stereo history and technology.
Even another variation was the playtape system in the late 60s I think it was limited 4 track...find them on ebay alot
My favorite format...could let the music play over and over for hours. Listened to Aerosmith " Rocks " atleast 4 times a night...lol
I remember listening to 8 track as a kid in the mid 70s. We had Marie Osmond, The Jackson 5, Elvis Country, Guy Lombardo Christmas, Thank God it's Friday Soundtrack. After 1979 we bought records and cassettes.
that really is great....we used this kind of thing at the radio for years...jingles etc....short continual loop tape carts.....very nice purchase you made there and like you say,the carts are so cheap....cannot go wrong.....great video
Nice 8track you found there.
Ten bucks, fully functional and clean inside.
Good score! 👍
I never really got into 8 track. I was more into cassettes. However, as an electronic tech, I did repair a lot of 8 track players and the tapes as well. Really very simple : )
I installed an eight track with the first wired remote in our 1965 VW Beetle. It had two buttons on/off & track change. And a six foot cord on the remote. I had the player in the glovebox and the cord strung out across under dash to my driver's vent window lock. Damn I thought it was cool... Life was good... LOL (Have you ever heard of one with a wired remote?) THANKS............
Very interesting video. I've never owned an 8 track player myself but I have seen a few videos on these things and it's great to see one still working. For a while now I've been wondering whether to get one of these players and some 8 tracks myself, but then when I think of the maintenance stuff with it like cleaning the tape head, alignment issues, repairing the cassettes etc, I kinda get put off. I wouldn't know how to get to the head to clean it for a start, then sometimes the foam pads on the cassettes would need replacing, but I'm sure that would be an easy fix though. I think the one thing that would really be annoying for me is where some songs would be split in half when you get half a song on one track and then the other half on the next track. I would like to get an 8 track at some point, just to get the experience of them and to see what they were really like. I might get one one day, who knows. Thanks for sharing this.
Those are non-existent issues which can only occur if you listen to one cassette for way too many hours, like, 50 -100 hours: The tape gets worn and issues might start to pop up (master tapes and quality compact cassette tapes last longer than 100 hours for sure - the same for 8-tracks). The machines themselves should last much, much longer, like, thousands of hours. Cleaning heads is not something you should often do. If you rewind/fast forward a lot (compact cassettes) in play mode, the mechanism (belt) wears way faster, and the machine breaks down eventually (maybe after 200-300 hours). If it is not a sensor mechanism, and you press rewind/fast forward during playback, you will damage it right away. It means you should always stop playback before rewinding/forwarding, unless it's a sensor mechanism that allows it but still will wear off much, much faster if you rewind with the belt engaged. As to 8-tracks, there's no rewinding/fast forwarding (maybe some semblance of fast forwarding), so no fast wear can happen. No need to worry. The only problem is you might get a very worn machine from the get-go. They all work pretty fine in my opinion. Just don't get stuff that is too worn and on its last legs, and things will work pretty nice. So your concerns might only pertain to tape decks, while 8-tracks should be fine. There's only once concern in reality: belt on compact cassette players. The rest is fine and you should not worry at all. I mean most of compact cassette players have belt problems as people misuse or abuse the player through fast/forwarding and rewinding, especially when it's done during playback. It spells doom and gloom for the machine, even a sensor-controlled tape machine.
I recently went to an auction and got SO MANY blank 8 tracks. I got a few pre recorded ones but I probably got like 40 blanks for I think about 5 or 6 bucks.
After inheriting my grandparents 8 tracks (no one else wanted them) I actually bought a couple from an antique mall yesterday. I got the soundtrack to the movie Lady Sings The Blues and I got Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass Greatest Hits. It's a neat format. I'm fascinated by old obsolete stuff like that.
Really kool videos and info dude...
Cheers from Australia 😊🇦🇺🥂🇺🇸
Glad you enjoyed it
I'm in Australia too. Not many 8 track tape cartridges or players in Australia. I've got a couple players still. Had a couple more. Still have a collection of about 40 mostly good rock and pop 8 track cartridges from the 70's, Beatles red compilation plus a few Rolling stones, Bee gees, Pink Floyd Dark Side Of The Moon, Loud Reed Transformer, Best of ABBA, John Denver etc. Unfortunately most of those have seen better days with the labels ranging from bubbling to completely peeled off and they all sound very staticy and most warbley with wow and flutter, some all over the place. Some don't play at all. I used to love listening to them as the formats rather different with its quirks. I can understand them not lasting the test of time in a hot, sometimes dirty car. I'm guessing they were a fairly short lived format in Australia when all my carts are from around 72-75. I'm not sure if one might be as late as 78.
Every time a RUclips video is interupted but a commercial my mind is flown back to family road trips listening to our 8 tracks with the "click click" in the middle of the song at times!
Good old 8 tracks. I have about 40 of them. Favourite one is " In Through The Out Door" by Zep. Good ones are worth a bit. They are rarer in England than the States ( i mean the variety of different machines especially) . Would love to get a really clean recordable machine. Some niche releases on 8 track have come out in last couple of years. Happy days & hope your bush fires die down soon.
The really valuable ones are the Record Club only titles that were released after 1982 when the major labels stopped selling them. RCO titles were made in limited quantities as subscribers requested them when ordering and they eventually phased them out in 1988.
Ah yes the memories, in my formative years when I had a Lafayette quad receiver along with a cassette deck, an 8 track stereo deck through a Lafayette quad adapter, an 8 track quad recording deck, a reel to reel tape deck (a Sony I think), and a Garrard turntable with both discrete and matrix comparable cartridges. Additionally, all this stuff was channeled through a couple of A/B switches and a Russound tape monitor extender. It was a thing of beauty with a monumental tangle of rca connections (with custom length cables of course) which nobody except myself could understand! My wife would give it a clear path and make the sign of the cross as she walked by. I don't recall the brands of the 8 track players. If she ever knew how much money I spent on that stuff back then...
Recordology you are giving us good memories of the earlier music invention that leads to digital music. Very good. Thanks.
Just love these tapes
Have you seen the video from Tech Moan about this topic
8 tracks are undeniably cool especially if you're nostalgic for Seventies woodgrain stuff. A nice solid tactile format, reminds me a little of the old Atari 2600 consoles and the days when a wooden housing and a chunky plastic cartridge were considered hi-tech.
I recently had the opportunity to pick up an 8-track deck (with its original speakers and AM/FM radio) here in the UK for nothing, confirming your point about it not being a particularly valuable or desirable format. Came with a bunch of tapes too.
The downsides are that characteristic wow and flutter and the fact that the blue used in the labels tends to dry out over time, causing the tapes themselves to look scruffy.
Have you ever come across one of those huge Morse quadrophonic 'jukebox' units on your thrifting adventures? We didn't get them in the UK, but they often had an 8-track deck on the console along with the radio and turntable. Very cool looking machines. A family member in the US has one in his man cave :)
I need to find one of those!
I had one of those stereos back in the late 70’s. And it’s called Morse Electrophonic. Not quadraphonic.
My 1st car a 1966 Chevelle had an under dash 8 track. One of my 1st 8 Tracks tapes was Pink Floyd Dark side of the Moon and it would change tracks in the middle of the guitar solo on Time. Loved my 8 Tracks but soon cassette tapes took over. Love live the 8 Track.
I came here because people in the comment section in a video of a kid questioning a cassette player. As A 2000s kid (I'm 22 now) I herd of VHS cassettes, and dial phones, but I never herd of this. Now I'm here!!! :D
Some people may know the Fidelo-pack better as a cart, which was the common name in radio. I had 8-Tracks for years, but their main problem is they are built to tighten over time and eventually self-destruct. I don't really miss them. Take care...
Wow the sound.... I'm in love!
That difference in linear velocity is exactly why the length of the tape is so limited. The more tape you have in a system like that, the greater the differential, and the greater the tension on the tape and the internal friction of the cartridge.
The general wisdom for those with 8-track recorder decks was to keep cartrige 'size' under 60 minutes if you wanted to play the tapes in your car or your portable, because the small 12VDC motors in car units (or 6V-9V in most portables!) would often struggle with the longer tapes, particularly as the tapes aged.
Home decks had less of a problem with 80- and 100-minute carts because they usually had big, sturdy AC motors, but even here the longer tapes were not advised; the tension on the tape I spoke of would often cause the foil splice to fail.
And recording those 8-Tracks was a pain if you wanted to avoid the CH-CHAK of the track change in the middle of a song. You had to carefully arrange your songs so that they would fit in each program, and at the same time try to minimize as much as possible the 'silent' sections of the tape. That's why some commercial 8-Tracks had a song from theLP version (or sometimes two) removed, and some 8-tracks had 'bonus' material or would repeat a song (usually the song that was most popular on the radio). And often, there was nothing for it; you had to split the song across two or more tracks (Ina Gadda Da Vida, anyone?).
I loved the format, but it was a pain to work with sometimes.
These players are easy to open. You have to turn it upside down and remove the screws from the underside then grab the front plate and slide the whole mechanism out of the wooden box. Your player has a head which is held in place with a white plastic bracket. The plastic is cracked on the top where the screw holding the head in place is located. This is common for these decks. You can use some epoxy glue to repair the plastic. Otherwise the head will soon fall out of alignment. Nice video!
I've JB Welded so many of those plastic head frame brackets, I can do it in my sleep. lol The older metal head bracket frames were so much better but they had to try and save a buck in the early 70's and now it's biting us all in the ass 40-50 years later.
Thanks for this!
Eight tracks players filled a niche market as a practical way to play music in cars. The sound was quite good compared to music on noise AM radios most people had in their car. That Sound Design home player was a budget priced unit. There were higher quality units that sounded better and allowed recording your own cartridges. I have an Akai reel to reel that has a eight track player/recorder built-in. It has bias adjustment and a higher quality mechanism.
I was being driven home from school and the person had a Pat Benatar 8 track.
Great video!
Thanks!
@@Recordology No problem. :)
Pretty neat. I never got into the 8 tracks. I had a cassettes. I Love Record Players. 👍
I remember when I was a kid we had a Thunderbird with an 8-track player 😂 Someone broke into our car, hot wired it and rode it around for weeks then we finally found it and our 8-track player was magically still there. We had that broke down thunderbird until about 5 years ago when we finally sold it for parts….good times with those! I remember when cassettes took over and eventually CDs…..man CDs were expensive af when they came out.
That grey cylindrical speaker is the same kind i have thier awesome.
Yes!
8 tracks are cool.
I recently found some 8 tracks in my family garage and I have that same player that's in the video
I was late to convert over to cassette tapes I'll never forget I gave a friend a ride home and his words were What The Hell Is That!
lol
To get the 8-track out of its case, You have to unscrew the screws at the bottom and then pull the whole thing out from the front. Yeah, 8-track cartridges and units sound way better than their reputation. I was surprised at first too! My 8-track player doesn't even have a power switch. The only thing you could call a powerswitch is a leafswitch that closes its contacts when you push in a cartridge fully. The transformer is powered all the time. Maybe i should add a "real" power switch after all. Btw, this is what mine looks like. ibb.co/BqTDH0X
My dad worked in the same building as Soundesign in Jersey City , New Jersey. We had everything Soundesign in our house as a kid. Not the best quality stuff , he got a big discount.
I remember being amazed by the damn things at my great grandparent's home. I probably woke them up to the Eddie Rabbitt and Glen Campbell carts so many times. I still collect them. A ton of great, forgotten country hits that never made it to other formats around in thrift stores. Loves me some Johnny Lee and Glen!
Unfortunately a great number of leftover carts are the mid-80s gospel and instrumental garbage. Sometimes a gem is out there if you look enough.
Unfortunately my attempts to repair one that got eaten by the player or broke at the splice have always failed. Miserably. Soon as I open the things it's like I opened Pandora's box or a Jack in the Box. SPROING tape everywhere, and since I don't understand how the endless loop thing works, I never can rewind them back. I usually end up with a big mess of crinkled tape, or a foot or two slack for some reason, or it looks like it's supposed to but the tape doesn't move.
For my 16th birthday party, I borrowed AC/DCs Back in Black 8-track from a friend's older sister. It had just come out and we played it loud all night long! In the morning my house was trashed and the 8-track was gone. I never replaced it and I still feel bad about that. 🤷♀️ Who steals 8-tracks? Sheesh.
What I find interesting about this Format is the Design on them. The Cover Art Work.
I love 8 track tapes I also love my record player as well
People love to crap all over 8 track and the quality. Granted, some of it is well deserved. But it’s much better quality, when working properly, then people give it credit for.
I recently just picked up a Pioneer H-R100, that looks virtually new., off ebay. Cost me $175 U.S,, and being down in Sydney, cost me almost as much in postage. Only thing that needed to be fixed was the program selector.
But I have to say, it sounds as good as ANY cassette deck I’ve ever owned. Seriously. Currently blasting Kiss’ Love Gun...
7:37 It could also be used with a magnetic cartridge turntable with pre-amp.
I've found that most that do in fact have the foam, the foam literally disintegrates. Tapes with felt pads on tensioners are always best.
Hey, great video !
Aloha recordology,
Wow ! You brought back memories .
I used to sell this brand : SOUNDDESIGN at Woolworths in Ala Moana Shopping Center on the island of Oahu in the Hawaiian Islands, in the early 1970's . I also had a car unit My in dash car cassette player had a very tinny sound ,so I purchased an "in and out" under dash Craig 8-track player, this had a very full sound, of course I also had Jensen coaxial speakers at that time too, with Boston door speakers. My home unit consists of a 8-track player and recorder if I'm not mistaken I think it was Panasonic. The only bummer about 8-track tapes is if you're listening to a song it changes track sometime right between the song, and of course you couldn't play a particular certain track you would have to wait if it's between a channel. But 8tracks early on sure had a punch versus cassette tapes of course later on cassette tapes caught up and the players caught up in sound quality, I really enjoyed in the late seventies purchasing 8 tracks in The Bargain Bin or cutout bins that we called them back then.
Thank you for another video looking forward to your next Mahalo ed
Mahalo!
Wow Wee, that's kool dude 😮
i have a columbia 8 track player i havent tried it yet but im gonna because of this video. Btw great video!
I’d enjoy this format more if the splices didn’t come apart! Then the fun REALLY begins there. I have a decent-ish Sanyo player/recorder and I hardly play it because of this issue. So I kinda get why they were treated like a joke on sitcoms growing up.
If you resplice with a small piece of fresh foil tape on every new tape you buy, this doesn't happen and your tapes can go for decades more without the tape being pulled into the deck and eaten. By now, these carts are over 50 years old and foil splice adhesive dries up, foam pads crumble and felt squares fall off. Repair and tune up a tape before you play it for the first time (or again after many years) and it should outlast you. :)
in the analog world i think 8 track come up short, the only advantage was that you can listen to a whole album without flipping it over
I ordered me some blank Columbia Magnetic 8-track tapes from eBay and they’re in good condition-Ever used blank 8-track tapes for recording music on? Also, did you know that major record companies Capitol and Columbia made 8-track blank magnetic cartridges?
What about the bleed thru we used to experience, hearing other programs in the background?
Chances are your foam pressure pads were shot (mushy or crumbling) and the carts needed to be opened and those pads replaced. For good tape alignment with the head, there has to be some pressure on the tape to press up against the head or it'll float all over the place and you'll hear the other programs at the same time.
The tape head itself could need to be adjusted up/down. Now, it could be the actual recording itself that is off, but more likely the head could be ever so slightly off playing a little bit of the track before or after the one you are currently on. Usually there was some sort of access hole where you could get a screwdriver in to adjust it.
P.S.- Techmoan has done some odd vids on the 8 track.
They are coming back.
Eight track tapes are back
Country and Western music from the 70's is probably the peak of musical artistry. Anyway, I dont think these were at all popular in NZ. The nearest I got to one was the one was the player that my dad had in the workshop of his business when I was growing up. I dont remember it being used.
Wow belt looks good for a random pick
The 8 track standard i have as machine and tapes
I have so many 8 tracks but my player broke awhile ago and haven't had the chance to replace it yet :(
i had tiys in th attic houses the holy women and children first and the beatles on 8 track lots of rock on them my brother in late 60s every week would take us for root beer floats and play hey jude in his vw van if that dosnt screem early 70s dont know what does
Great review, but no history.
Which tape was the first?
Man I hate 8 tracks. Some songs I still hear the fade-out in the middle of the track in my mind. But that is a cool player and 8-tracks are part of our history.
I'm just trying to find out how did the spool roll off of the same reel it's wrapping back around.
I'm not sure why they sound as bad as they do. The tape speed is 3.75 ips and a cassette tape is 1.875 ips. The track width of the 8 track and cassette tape are exactly the same. Be careful with the splice with tapes that old because the glue gets totally dried and tape gets eaten up and looks like an accordion when you pull it out. Many feet of accordion I might add. I actually have a very fancy unit from the late 1970s made by Olson Electronics. It records, plays back, has an eject button, will automatically eject either after one program or all programs, depending how it's set. It also has a repeat function which will repeat the program and a fast forward button. It still works but I don't think it sounds that great. It just doesn't have much presence. I have an old Technics cassette deck I got about 30 years ago that has a fine bias adjust button and Dolby B/C HX Pro. With a Type I Tape, it has a frequency response of 20 to 18 kHz, with a Type II Chrome tape it is 20 to 19 kHz, and Type IV it's 20 to 20 kHz. It also has auto reverse where the head rapidly switches at 180 degrees and once in a while the head would go out of alignment and I had to adjust it. The tape deck itself if I recorded a CD into it, the sound quality of the cassette sounded extremely close to the CD, especially when using Dolby C. Thank you for sharing.
The tapes sounded bad because they usually weren't maintained. Once the foam pads start to crumble or lose their springiness, your highs are lost and you get tons of crosstalk and bleed. Also, the adhesive on those foil splices dries out and one good pull by the capstan and roller and it falls off and the tape just feeds itself into the deck until it either tangles or gets accordioned. These days, 40-50 years later, replacing the pads and cutting out and resplicing the foil makes the cartridge play and sound like night and day. I keep a bag of new drop in foam pads and a big roll of foil splice tape on hand and do tune ups on tapes that sound lousy and they sound great again. The only other reason they could sound bad is that they were played so many times and left in hot cars that the oxide on the tape wore off. These things were played to death in peoples' cars then left on dashboards or under seats until they were trashed. I've bought carts that were played at home only and after tuning them up they sound incredible, especially the early 60's Lear Jet "Flat Pack" type carts and early Ampex models (once you replace gooey melted rollers but that's another story.) Those early carts sound almost as good as open reel tapes.
I have a quadraphonic 8 track. 8 tracks are ok until you get click and snap.
Please do move videos on 8 tracks 👍
you got it :)
Can you show how this casette works inside its player with its singlespool?
They look like atari video game cartridges
Most 8 track tapes are unplayable due to the pads breaking down.
Same goes for cassettes.
So far I haven't run into either!
Serious question I'm a vinyl guy and would love to get into cassettes and 8 track but doesn't the ribbon degrade over time? How is the quality?
Its so slow that you will never notice.....on par with vinyl wear.
Cassettes last a good while, I have an authentic copy of thriller and it sounds perfect. As for 8 tracks I've never owned one
Certified insane Larry chester Thomas aniel later
Soon, you will discover the new compact cassette players then mini disc.😂😂😂
Oh we’ve been through all of it trust me…
How can I record music on 8 track that it’s being played on my iPhone ? And record the music
Those two eight-track tapes i have the albums of those. i use to have an eight-track tape player back in the day that was giving to me for free. The thing i hated about those tapes was a song would be playing and then it would fade out and then you heard click and then it would fade back in. Mostly the rock stuff would do that. I then got rid of the player and the tapes. I didn't have a lot of tapes but i really didn't like it.
Is it possible ? I’ve tried but idk how
They were never big here in Oz.
I have about 50 8 track tapes but the pads are all bad and the foil.
Once you get the hang of opening different styles of carts, new drop in pads and foil tape rolls can be bought online. I get mine at either 8 Track Avenue or Kate's Track Shack and tune up every cart I buy before playing it. You'd be surprised how good these tapes can sound once they're fixed right and have good pads and splices in them.
Mi aparato empezó a tocar los cartuchos muy rápido como ardillas saben cómo puedo reparar eso
Of all the vintage formats, 8-tracks are probably the most flawed. I own a whole bunch of 8Tracks and a deck, but I hardly ever use it because the sound quality just isn't there and most of the tapes I have are problematic.
2:07
Soundesign wasn't exactly the best, either. LOL. I had one.
I didn't like no rewind
They look like a freaken giant computer hard drive on steroids lol
hi i had a mate neol you know the man in the uk sold a dark side of he moon for over £600 i was bidding on a box to resell the tapes on later i had the money
he payed £700 uk ebay i know he made alot of money on the tapes 100% i know he was not happy with me bidding best mate told me beware never buy
high price tapes there's all ways someone push up the price that's mate of the seller the man got kicked of 3 times for doing this
SOLENOID NOT SELENNOID!!!!!