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Re: [ARSCLIST] On the beaten 8-track...
Interestingly, a few Dolby 8-track machines were made... One check on
the net and ebay found lots of examples...
-----Original Message-----
From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List
[mailto:ARSCLIST@xxxxxxx] On Behalf Of David Breneman
Sent: Monday, September 25, 2006 3:46 PM
To: ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] On the beaten 8-track...
--- 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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