God Save the Eight-Track

tabby · Post by **tabby** » Sat Mar 02, 2013 5:52 pm

I donâ€™t suppose any of you still have 8 track tapes lying around, do you? Like most everything, eventually there will be renewed interest although in this case it sounds as though they had devotees early on! Itâ€™s hard to believe that any of them will still play well and I would have assumed the tape part would have a tendency to get brittle with age but apparently some have stood up well.

I only had a handful of them ... Jim Croce, Seals & Crofts and ... oh dare I admit to this ... The Partridge Family.

God Save the Eight-Track | Collectors Weekly

Lady J · Post by **Lady J** » Sat Mar 02, 2013 8:22 pm

I think I have a few stored down under the basment stairs! Hahahaha! Who knows what shape they are in.

My first car did not have any music in it. My brother rigged up an 8-rack player for me under the driver's seat. I cut out from a Radio Shack's advertisment for 8-track players a picture and glued it in the dash of the car. It looked real! You would not believe how many times my riders would try to press the buttons to change the song and I would reach under my seat and change to a new track! LOL!!

Great memories! Thanks Tabby.

:wah:

Patsy Warnick · Post by **Patsy Warnick** » Sat Mar 02, 2013 8:24 pm

I have several 8-tracks and a player

Patsy

along-for-the-ride · Post by **along-for-the-ride** » Sun Mar 03, 2013 8:20 am

We also have a bunch of 8-tracks and an 8-track player as well. Hubby has always been a fan of the ole 8-track tapes. He plays his country ones now and then.

:guitarist

tabby · Post by **tabby** » Tue Mar 05, 2013 4:22 am

I had no idea that they would even be playable at this point! I hope they stay flexible and you can enjoy them for many more years. I wonder if you can buy the 8-track tapes at old record stores along with some great albums. If I still had my Partridge Family tape, I'd let you have it! :yh_wink

Enjoyed your story, Lady J!

chonsigirl · Post by **chonsigirl** » Wed Mar 06, 2013 5:56 am

Oh, I have lots of them. Along with the original Atari system and 2 boxes of games.......

AnneBoleyn · Post by **AnneBoleyn** » Wed Mar 06, 2013 2:40 pm

chonsigirl;1422169 wrote: Oh, I have lots of them. Along with the original Atari system and 2 boxes of games.......

I think that must be worth good money to collectors. Did you ever have it priced?

PS--never had 8-track & still play vinyl sometimes.

librtyhead · Post by **librtyhead** » Wed Mar 06, 2013 7:25 pm

I remember how to fix those. I also have one that is full of songs I learned on the guitar when I was 12. I have gained an appreciation towards Goodwill industries for the seemingly never ending supply of old 8-track players for 4-5 bucks.

tabby · Post by **tabby** » Mon Dec 09, 2013 8:38 am

Wandrin · Post by **Wandrin** » Mon Dec 09, 2013 9:43 am

I thought that the 8-track system was one of the astoundingly bad designs in the history of audio equipment and refused to buy one. For my vehicle, I was interested in a competing design called the cassette. One of the primary factors in the quality of sound from tape equipment is the alignment of the head to the track on the tape. The 8-track system jerked the head into one of 4 positions with a rather clunky imprecise mechanism that I thought was guaranteed to fail.

I was a young idealist, back in the day. :-3

tabby · Post by **tabby** » Mon Dec 09, 2013 10:05 am

Wandrin;1442427 wrote: One of the primary factors in the quality of sound from tape equipment is the alignment of the head to the track on the tape. The 8-track system jerked the head into one of 4 positions with a rather clunky imprecise mechanism that I thought was guaranteed to fail.

Is that one of the reasons they faded into oblivion faster than some of the other audio technologies?

Wandrin · Post by **Wandrin** » Mon Dec 09, 2013 2:15 pm

tabby;1442430 wrote: Is that one of the reasons they faded into oblivion faster than some of the other audio technologies?

It's one of the reasons. Phillips actually had a patent for the cassette system before 8-track systems hit the market, but some electronics companies were trying to avoid paying the licensing fees by coming up with something else. Once a couple of companies came out with cassette products, the writing was on the wall. Size made a difference for car stereos, along with the fact that you could make your own music cassettes at home. 8-track recorders for the home were basically DOA, since they were big, clunky, low fidelity, and expensive. I don't think anyone in the electronics industry expected 8-track players to last as long as they did. The only reason that they did was the record companies - the same people that pushed the 8-track format in the first place. The record companies liked it because people had to buy the recorded 8-track media (from them) and couldn't make their own mix tapes.