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Why Does 8-Track Exist?

You're right

RobRoy said:
My uncle from California, back in the 60's, had one of those Muntz four track players in his car. The tape literally sat ON TOP of the player and when you slid it on, you could see the mechanism come up to engage the tape. I seem to remember there was a manual tape/mechanism engagement lever on the deck, but I could be wrong.
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Fixed a few in the early seventies. Kind of odd. Seems like some played four and eight track tapes. Ran several 8 tracks in cars then cassettes. Still run an AM,FM,CD,weather radio with cassette in my 03 Subaru Outback. Still make cassettes. Just fixed up a Kenwood KD 1030 cassette deck. Makes a nice tape. Easier than burning a CD! Saw this in a customers house yesterday. Played disco back in the 70s on them!
 

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stereofisher said:
Fixed a few in the early seventies. Kind of odd. Seems like some played four and eight track tapes.
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There was a transitional period when players were available that played both 4 and 8 track tapes. Some kind of mechanical linkage sensed whether there was a hole in the bottom (4 track) or notch in the right side (8 track). Muntz, Tenna, Automatic Radio and others made combo players. Also, there was at least one marketer - CarTapes, from Chicago - who made a combination 8 track/cassette player - with a single slot!
 
Back in the mid-70's I had a nice collection of Beatle albums and CCR on 8-track. My 8-track player was a Lear Jet. This model !


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Ah, the memories of cruisin' town with Sandra! ; )
 

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kfalls said:
CBS manufactured most of their own cases. They are assembled, then sonically welded. We had our own plastic compound plant where they made plastic/vinyl for cartridges and records (CBS columbia house was attached to the tape facility). The Masterworks cassettes were higher quality and assembled with screws. Over the years I've thrown away many bad squeeling tapes. The plastic guides wear out. I now do DVD and BD copy-protection. Can't tell you about that, or I'd have to kill you:)
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And also CBS in the late 1960's purchased Reeves Soundcraft (major tape company) which became Columbia Magnetics. CBS engineering and QC was to very high standards, as you describe. All but one of the CBS Recording Studios was built, and usually all custom built equipment or very modified as necessary (Usually tape machines). That one studio CBS purchased was too good, and too high reputation to not respect (that studio was the Owen Bradley Quonset Hut in Nashville, Tennessee). CBS did most all of their Nashville recording sessions there, before purchasing the studio in 1962. Selby Coffeen became an employee of CBS (head engineer then).
 
sssmokin99 said:
GM offered 8-track as an option (first under-dash, then in dash- thru the dial) in the late 60's. And was still an option in the late 70's/early 80's. A friend bought a new '78 Trans Am that had an AM/FM/8track radio. He took it out in order to install a cassette unit and sold it to me for $75. The price he paid? It was $341 (pretty sure on that, lol). - and it was a very good radio. Didn't use the 8 track much, but the radio was good, and I kept it until swapping it out for an Alpine cassette. I still have that Delco 8-track , and it still works using a power supply/speakers !
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Late 1966-1967 was when GM began offering factory installed Stereo 8 track players in their automobiles.
 
Good points all,:thumbsup: as the cassette and the 8 track vied for top billing in the early 60's.

The cassette was more so for office application at the time, and when Lear got into the audio scene, selling the 8 tracks to FORD, business contracts and advertising probably gave the "latter" an edge... which eventually changed as the design got better for the cassette in the next few years.

I had a GM orig 8 track player that put out decent stereo sound, due to the "Multiplex" that y'all see sported in my "Avatar" photo. The "Multiplex" gave the divided stereo results, and it hang under the front dash. There was yet another model with the "stick" tranny that had this device in the consul during the GM '67-'69 years.


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KentTeffeteller said:
Those were very rugged, very heavy, very well made tape players. GM was a little bit late to the Stereo 8 party, but made good units when they did.
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And big ass heatsinks for those late sixties ~ early seventies Delco single ended low power, but rich sounding Cass A output sections.
Usually upgrading from the 6X9 OEM speakers in the the very common rear deck with Jensen, Kraco, etc. coaxial speakers was enough for a lot of budget minded folks while they saved up for a better headend unit later installed.
 
Sorry if I step on some toes here....but IMHO 8track tape has NO redeeming social, musical, or mechanical value whatsoever!! And I was here for it's invention and (hopefully) final demise.
 
Outland said:
For a while I believed that 8-tracks were developed before cassettes. That made sense, as 8-track was developed early, and took over the car industry. Then the cassette was released, which slowly edged out the 8-track with it's superior design and sonic quality.

Apparently this is not so. The cassette was developed before the 8-track by a margin of several years.

This begs the question, why was 8-Track developed, and why was it worse than the compact cassette?

Just a thought..
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Narrow track width and moveable heads degraded the performance of the format. Their benefit was that it was easy to install or remove a tape, with little distraction while driving. With cassettes, heads were firmly mounted with precision positioning w.r.t. the tape path, resulting in better sound in spite of the slower speed. I think that more work was done on cassette tape coating formulations to provide a better magnetic medium for higher fidelity sound reproduction, because cassettes were also used in home systems, where S.Q. would matter more. 8 track never made it big in home systems the way cassettes did.
 
Bill Ferris said:
And big ass heatsinks for those late sixties ~ early seventies Delco single ended low power, but rich sounding Cass A output sections.
Usually upgrading from the 6X9 OEM speakers in the the very common rear deck with Jensen, Kraco, etc. coaxial speakers was enough for a lot of budget minded folks while they saved up for a better headend unit later installed.
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Well, I did say I was sorry about stepping on some toes, Mr. Ferris. My reasons for what I said are....track changes in the middle of a song are just like YouTube putting advertisements in the middle of songs, and DJs talking into the beginning, and before the ending of songs. Wrong, wrong, wrong. I realize that with 8tr recorders, you could sort of work around the track changes, but then you would end up with blank periods before the next tr. change. I never did put one of those things in my cars. Loved to see the cassettes, more to see CDs, and even more for USB inputs and streaming, speaking of cars of course.
But, as always, to each his own. :)
 
I remember my dad buying a new Lincoln Continental back in "77". It came with a stock quad 8track player. Sounded pretty good to my then young ears!
 
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