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Wollensak 8-track player?!?

janikphoto

janikphoto

Lunatic Member
I paid $15 for eight pieces of electronics at a local GW auction today. A couple dvd units that work for the most part, a couple units that don't really work so well, an 80's tuner that works fine, and a Wollensak 8056 8-track player/recorder. This thing is pretty unique and odd.

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I bought a few 8 tracks today at fifty cents a piece to test out the unit, and it appears to work just fine. I'm wondering if I should keep it around for the heck of it... what do you tape junkies think? I know R2R sounds better and cassettes are more reliable. Would putting this into one of my systems be like putting a Ford Pinto into a classic car collections?!?

Info on the Wollensak:

http://www.8trackheaven.com/archive/whatwoll.html
 
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I'm not into 8 tracks myself, but I purchased a Panasonic 8 track deck because it was cheap and it looked cool. I had some Motown 8 tracks and it plays fine. It is all that I remembered about how 8 tracks sounded. Noticing a little boost in the mid bass region and I have to adjust the treble to boost the highs. I might keep it around in case someone has 8 tracks to transfer.
 
I remember playing my parent's Beatles 8-tracks as a kid. Then, one day as a teen I saw another set of Beates 8-tracks at the church garage sale and almost bought them. I later found out they used to be ours and my mother donated them!
 
Actually those were fairly common back in the day. I had the cassette version but they were both very well built machines. Those machines seems to show up in one form or another on our local CL, maybe they were more popular in this neck of the woods. Another machine that seems to show up quite often around here is the Akai reel to reel with the 8 track unit built in to the side.
 
Yes... Keep it if only for the kitch value. There is nothing on earth more appropriate for playing old Elvis, Truckers collections or those 60's compilations. I have them for time to time and I love to hook them up to silver faced receivers and wood box speakers to make a sort of 60's shrine. They often work fine because they are simple and solid. Just a capstan and flywheel and a solenoid to bump the head up and down. As was noted I have to up the treble a bit because there never was any. BTW the Pinto shares parts with the early Mercury Capri and its European predecessor which was a blast to drive and is classic now.
 
When I was a senior in High School, my best friend had a Wollensak like that. It was a good unit and performed quite well!

What you really need is a couple of hundred old 8-track tapes. Back in the late 90's, I used to have a small Panasonic AM/FM/8-track combo unit on my desk. Some people would come in that had never seen or heard an 8-track tape. Others would come in and tell me that they had old 8-track tapes in their garage or closet. They would later bring them in and give them to me!

I accumulated quite a few tapes during that time, in addition to the ones that I had kept from my youth.

Enjoy your flashback to the 60's and 70's! :thmbsp:
 
Jonny Ramone said:
8 track cartridges often break at the track-select foil, which is why I don't collect them.
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That's a very easy fix to do, once you get the hang of it. Some cartridge shells are easier to open than others, but in all cases it is possible. A very inexpensive way to acquire some music not otherwise available.
 
1tumbleweed said:
That's a very easy fix to do, once you get the hang of it. Some cartridge shells are easier to open than others, but in all cases it is possible. A very inexpensive way to acquire some music not otherwise available.
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Yep. I have around 60 or so 8-track tapes and I have replaced the pressure pads and sensing foil on all of them.

Sound quality isn't the best, but it's a good dose of nostalgia and a fun novelty.
 
janikphoto said:
I'm wondering if I should keep it around for the heck of it... what do you tape junkies think?
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I think I keep mine around partly, to play the boatload of 8 tracks I bought for about 15 cents each, and partly to remind myself not to take myself too seriously :yes:
 
It's fun to tinker with, and if you can stand the quality (really not bad - I'd rate it just slightly below that of average normal bias Compact Cassettes recorded without noise reduction), there is some good music to be had for very, very little money.

I have a very nice Panasonic RS-847U quad-ready player (for, as I always say, when that becomes the next big thing :D ) that is in excellent working condition. My dad recently came across and gave to me a Mitsubishi three-tape 8-track changer.

Miraculously, it works perfectly and seems to be a very well thought out design.

Some tapes are much more reliable and repairable than others.
 
8 track machines and tapes are fun. As others have said they don’t sound particularly great but with a good playback machine the sound from some tapes can be a pleasant surprise. Pressure pads and can easily be replaced as can sensing foil. The foil can also be reinforced and, yes, 8 track is sometimes the only way some music can be found cheaply, or at all. It is also true that once the word gets out you will likely be given boxes of 8 tracks and even players.

I know I actually enjoy cleaning, repairing, and playing my 8 tracks because as someone so well said it is a reminder not to take myself too seriously. A colleague seeing my stereo setup for the first thought my hobby a little too fringe until he saw my Pioneer 8 track and asked to hear it. He smiled as it played, got a kick out of the incredibly small VU meters, commented on how good it sounded, and told me stories of being a kid and playing with the machine in his parent’s old console. Nostalgia, fun, and just plain interesting to those of us so interested. So, why not include them?
 
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Wollensak's are the high end of 8 track decks. They fetch a good price on Ebay. They had the best sound quality and recording quality for the format. Their Achilles heal is the DC motors. They are weak and cannot handle tapes with a tight tape pack very well. I have an 8075a which is the TOTL stereo model with Dolby.

A_L
 
Yep, hang onto that Wollensak or at least give or sell it to someone else! I absolutely hate hearing about someone throwing out all their 8 tracks and their player just because they are old. Wollensak 8 track decks are known to be some of the best sounding 8 track decks out there, as well as some Pioneers (particularly the H-R100) and Akais. Like a few said before, 8 tracks can be fun! You can find them at just about any thrift store, usually priced between 50¢ to $1. If you do a lot of garage sale hunting, you can usually find them for little to nothing. Just about any 8 track you will find today will need some service. If it has a foam pad, sometimes it will be disintegrated (some carts such as TC8s had foam that is still good today!). If it has spring pads, sometimes the felt will be loose or missing. The foil splice usually needs replacing because it broke or will break in the near future so I always replace it right away, I also reinforce the splice with some reel to reel splice tape placed on the backside. They are not hard to repair, after fixing a few, you get the hang of it. There's info all over the internet about cartridge and player repair.
 
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