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Question about 8track audio quality

dankik said:
I think part of the problem is that the user (teenager or young adult ) never cleaned the heads or pinch roller. The tapes were tossed in the car glove box or on the floor and left in the heat of a summer day. I think if we treated our reel-to-reel tapes like that, we would have issues with our home hi-fi decks as well
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To that end, the 8-track was always a poor technology for cars (compact cassette as well), but we all know it was what was available at the time for personal mobile music. That said, car interiors could reach into the low 100's F in many places in the world, which beat the hell out of the tape in general. High humidity in the cooler seasons, sub-zero temps in the winter, summers could be brutal. It wasn't until the Compact Disc came along that things started to get "environmentally robust". Mini-Disc also did great in car interiors.
 
dankik said:
Another interesting find. Apparently, there were some players that would play either 4 track or 8 track cartridges.
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Yes, there were several players that did this - a semi-universal approach, helpful as 4 tracks were dying and 8 tracks were in ascendancy.

Tenna/Ranger was a big supplier of these, with an interesting mechanism that could sense which type was being inserted - raise the roller within the machine for 4T, or just snap-in the carts for 8T.

There were even machines that could play eight tracks or CASSETTES! Imagine the mechanical nightmare those machines were inside!:yikes:
 
dankik said:
The whole concept of 4-track or 8-track cartridge tape feeding is interesting.
  • Consider this... you are feeding the tape from the center of the pack where the diameter is small.
  • When it pulls out, the reel rotates to wind the tape to the outside of the pack. But the diameter of the outer pack is much larger than the center.
  • The tape is being pulled at a linear rate (3-3/4 ips) which causes the pack to rotate at an angular rotation rate.
  • The linear rate of the outer take-up diameter is much larger and much more than the feed rate.
  • This only works if the tape is able to easily slip while wound in the pack.
  • As you pull from the center, it pulls the tape from the rest of the pack tighter around the center hub.
  • From what I remember, this is accomplished by using a tape that has a very slick back-coating (graphite) that made it easy to slide.
View attachment 2979802
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All through High School in the 1970s, all I had was a 'all in one' 'hi-fi' system with a built-in 8-track player/recorder. Only a few years later, after graduating college, I want back to my parents house to recover recorded material from the tapes. Even though the tapes were only a few years old, they were breaking or jamming. It really was a bad system that should never return.
 
ic-racer said:
All through High School in the 1970s, all I had was a 'all in one' 'hi-fi' system with a built-in 8-track player/recorder. Only a few years later, after graduating college, I want back to my parents house to recover recorded material from the tapes. Even though the tapes were only a few years old, they were breaking or jamming. It really was a bad system that should never return.
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Yeah, I think out of every audio format out there, I think that 8track is the most hated and obscure (other than reel to reel, but we don't talk about reel to reel). and for good reason too. it breaks often, its not that good sounding, and I think most importantly, its hard to make sense out of. I still don't understand how the 4 different channels work, its like stereo witchcraft.
 
The 4 Track and 8 Track players were the first (and for several years), the only way to pick one's own music to play, while the car was in motion. The only alternative was AM Radio, and finally FM Radio, nearly a decade later. People felt empowered to play what they liked, instead of depending on a DJ, and enduring chatter and commercials, EM interference, and modest sound quality. The 8 Track was a big hit as it offered many advantages over alternatives of the day.
 
dankik said:
My first car in high school was a 1965 Ford Mustang 289 (bought used in the '70s). Back then the standard car radio was ONLY AM. I didn't like 4-track or 8-track because I could not record my own "mix" tapes, so I waited until a decent cassette player arrived... My first car cassette player was a Sony TC-20. It was a nice, rugged deck, but lacking in features.

View attachment 2980420

Then I decided to upgrade to the legendary Pioneer KP-500 AM/FM/Cassette deck... the ultimate hi-fi stereo at the time. It had it all... separate bass and treble controls, switchable loudness, FM stereo (with muting). It was a great car deck. Hmmm... I think I still have it installed in the Mustang. It was a great sounding deck. You could crank up the volume and PLAY IT LOUD... listening to Pink Floyd, Genesis, Beatles, Moody Blues... I understand that these are quite collectable now.
View attachment 2980421
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That Sony looks cool!
 
I discovered something interesting about my ROSS 8track player yesterday: It is only capable of outputting 45 watts, which I discovered, isn't enough to power the intern speaker I'm using. When I turn the volume up, it starts to distort and sound odd, and the sound quality takes a dive. So I went onto goodwill and found a good deal for a high powered stereo, which i'll be using to power all my other stuff from now on. I guess it makes sense, since, yknow, its from 1978
 
They sound, man they sound.
There have a distinct sound in between the cassette and the 3.75ips 4 track RTR.
Quite no hiss, people say there is a lot but the spectrum analyser is against them!!!
With a good serviced deck and blank tape you can make really good sounding tape! (50hz-16Khz Flat)
This said the system precision is not the most accurate, you can have cross talk misalignment just by moving the cartridge. (the best is to insert the cartridge let the player set it and don't touch it)
Also the old prerecorded tape quality is like pre-recorded cassette, not the best you can achieve.
Plus yes it's but i must be wrong quite impossible to keep them in excellent shape for 60 years, the glue in the track switch leader will goes out someday making the tape in best case just going out of the cartridge and in the worth case some few seconds ruined by the capstan.
That's certainly also the case for blank tape.
However tape isn't also known to last so long without issues.

Also well you need fast access to the mechanism in case of trouble, or just for cleaning and demag, so if you don't modify the case, it's nude use most of the time because like a RTR, cassette deck or whatsoever tape base constant cleaning is necessary especially when you use it for hours and hours and you will!

Wow and flutter case, well i have very old tape with inaudible, and other with audible, specs aren't bad, so i suppose it's tape keeping dependant!

In fact this support need supports, new tape to refills cartridge with.
The tape jam, isn't really an issue as it would occurs in case of new tape well above a descent time usage. Unless you play football with it.

I love them:
- Just as easy as push to play, you enter them with feet or eye closed!
- The sound is unique and very acceptable, especially with blank tape and why note a good dolby B bias optimized.
- The program selector and the FF button help correcting the lack of the RW button. Again if you'r not the man which absolutely want to be a that track from the start, you will more enjoy the fast program change which make things like radio. (I love this)
The correct use for very demanding people is program change ff to finish current track.
- They can run all the day with the same cartridge.
- You can just make a pills of tape you like and play them it eject at each program or end of the tape, or can repeat program, while you're working, instead of constantly hearing this digital sound which is full of phase distortion and no good for easy long time listening!
- Analog device to cherish, push /button/knobs, cleaning, in worth case tape cartridge repair, time to make a recording, all analog sane activities whose will take you off the digital screen!

Sometimes i'm dreaming of a dolby C HX room three head player/recorder with fine bias and rec level and a serious drawer (where the cartridge can't move at all), just would explode the cassette and 3.75IPS 4 Track but as already said the sound capabilities on home player/recorder is really descent. (in fact i think it's better than a type I cassette with no/B dolby and no hx room)

F... give me new tape with back graphite in order to enjoy this underrated for the time, and very welcome today as something else than virtual format at it's most... those old tape are getting older and older, to much repaired and with old content...
And no, even the LPR35, with it's special back coat won't work flawlessly, perhaps i did put to much 80mn but the sound recorded with this tape...
 
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ZZ Top was asked about the huge popularity of Tres Hombres. They mentioned that it was massively sold on tape. Everybody in my High School has that 8 Track
 
One of my best friends not only had one of the Craig 8-Track recorders in his bedroom(AKA basement), but he had a player in his '64 Chevy Impala, too. They annoyed the hell out of me with the Wow they had. The tracks switching in the middle of songs annoyed me too. I lived with the hiss of cassettes fine, but I could never tolerate 8-Tracks for any length of time. That friend above and I went to Columbus once and the roughly 2 hours on the road, listening to the warbly "Dark Side Of The Moon" twice and Santana "Abraxis" made me have fantasies about taking a ball peen hammer to the carts and player both.
 
I feel fortunate that I didn't use 8 track much. I would have to find all the memorable tapes I had and give up and make space for another deck, give up a tape spot -
just too much trade off for a machine that plays a "song with the funky break".
 
A lot of you are sarcastic, and i agree it's easy to remember the worst: old cartridge played on used belt and not cleaned/serviced device where the tape feed the player after first side!

But it's not the only thing to remember.

Most of the time it's just very descent and exceptionally good on a monitor system where you boost some very low end and upper high for pre recorded tape.

Nothing is perfect, cassette also jam in player, digital is full of phase distortion, vinyl got pop clicks , etc...

But never say that this just good for the hammer, because it's certainly not!

They just didn't take it seriously as it was targeted for lowest price range.
Most of the pre-recorded tape cut a 8Khz, are recorded as loud as possible where the full spectrum could run up to 16Khz, and distortion below 1% if not pushed to +3Db!
As for wow and flutter again most of the time it's inaudible, in fact the spec are as good as most tape player/recorder regarding this!

So while we can joke on it as fun it's important that young understand that most of people did had a good time with it.

Curiously when we jump to cassette thread there also this kind of joke: horrible sound, wow and flutter, tape jam, hiss, etc
People always start by the worst , but never tell that they used it for decade with fun!
Same with vinyl, or reel to reel.

So this one is for all the thread were people push only bad faith just for fun, while they keep for them-self that they also used and enjoyed it.

I never had the chance to get it when it was at pinnacle but i certainly regret it because 60 years after with a deck in half order (for the moment) and tape whose certainly were used as a football balloon, guess what, i get fun, i prefer playing with it than spending time on digital and it's so much more convenient than a RTR just for background music listening.
 
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Yeeterkeeter said:
Generally, what is the audio quality of an 8track? Is it scratchy sounding or is it more akin to vinyl or cassette?
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My impression is poorer than cassette. The purpose of the format was to make tape player usage the least distracting to a driver operating it while driving. Of all the consumer recorded music forms, it's the worst sounding of the lot. The low tape speed an the tiny track width are the main problems, along with high speed dubbing to make them. Also, the pickup head had to jump up and down to engage the 4 pairs of tracks on the tape, making head alignment an iffy proposition. 8-tracks are, outside of convenience of use, curbsiders.
 
I had a 8 track player as a teen back in the 70's. Don't remember much about it to tell you the truth. Can't say I miss it. It's only appeal to me now is the nostalgia. I was much more involved with cassettes later in my youth. Cassettes are still cool to me.
 
Well contrary to most i discovered it in 2019!
So there is no nostalgia.
I still think it's a great support for background music and the most convenient of all analog support.
I will try again to put inside a cartridge some LPR90...
However RTM is thinking about it.
So younger everything is in your hands!
 
8-Track and RtR were both bad enough to make me not want to mess with anything "tape" until the cassette was invented.
 
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