Re: [ARSCLIST] On the beaten 8-track...

[David Lennick <dlennick@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

There were definitely standalone 8-track recorders and blanks available for
them, and didn't those turntable-AM/FM-8 track combo units (Candle etc) have
recording capability? As recently as the late 80s, someone needed to have a
commentary he was doing for an exhibit at the Canadian National Exhibition
recorded on 8-track so it would play continuously, and a collector friend was
able to oblige. A listener once sent me an 8-track of old recordings he'd taken
off the air (I don't think I ever did find a machine to play it on).

dl

Rob Bamberger wrote:

> Is my recollection mostly correct that there were few, or essentially no
> consumer market 8-track decks that permitted people to record their own
> 8-track compilations for use in the car (or elsewhere)?
>
> When acquaintances remarked to me in the 1990s that they did not see
> the cassette being displaced entirely by the CD, my response was that
> the introduction of a recordable CD would be the end of the cassette
> once the economics became comparable to cassette feedstock and
> technology.
>
> Similarly, is it correct to surmise that the ability (eventually) to
> make reasonably decent recordings of one's own LPs to cassette, or
> custom compilations, was the major reason for the format's disappearance
> in the early 1970s?
>
> (The 8-track format had a number of things going against it, and would
> have passed from the scene at some point. The question here is why did
> it disappear when it did.)