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Re: [ARSCLIST] On the beaten 8-track...
Yes 8 track cartridges had many problems, but I did have a high end
consumer 8 track recorder deck with Dolby-b and maybe a chrome switch
that sounded pretty good for the time. For home taping, you could make
sure that no songs went over a channel change, but that would leave some
blank sections. And I still have somewhere a 4 channel 8 track recorder
of semi high quality, but it has no sound-on-sound capabilities, so was
of limited use to me, and I think it has broken belts now.
--- Rob Bamberger <rbamberger@xxxxxxxxxxx> 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)?
There were few, but that's alot different than "essentially
no[ne]." I never saw a very high quality one. They were
usually a feature of tabletop stereos of the type that had
a tuner/amp/8-track machine with a turntable on top. An
aunt and uncle of mine had one. I don't think they ever
used it. Radios Hack made a component 8-track recorder,
which was probably about the best you could buy. They were
around, but nobody used them because they were a PITA.
Imagine a cart machine with no cue tone.
> 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?
Early 70s? Try early 80s. Up until the advent of Dolby and
chromium dioxide tape the sound quality of cassettes was
terrible. The first time I ever saw a cassette deck in a
car was in 1976, in Germany. 8-tracks never caught on in
Europe. I didn't start to see them in the US until a couple
years later. I'm trying to remember when I bought my
first cassette deck for my home stereo -- maybe around 1978?
> (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.)
1) Cassette sound quality eventually overtook 8-tracks with the
advent of Dolby and chrome tape.
2) Ease of making your own compilations.
3) No annoying split-song track changes.
David Breneman david_breneman@xxxxxxxxx
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