8 track players
Funky_Mimizu
631 Posts
I'm thinking of getting an 8 track player... mainly because I see good 8 track carts at the thrift store all the time.Anyone have one? Recommended or nay? Hows the sound? Can you recommend a brand or model of player to look out for? Whats a good price to pay?Thanks in advance...Peace...FNM
Comments
my friend found a copy of Headless Heroes of the Apocalypse on 8-track!
not to say i dont like them, but i really dont get how these were such a big format, the fidelity is horrible!
that said...
http://www.8trackheaven.com/whatwoll.html
With that said, there aren't really any "audiophile" 8-track tape players. What you do have to look for are players that actually play. If you test them out at a thrift store, pop in a tape. Hook it up with the closest stereo set out there, and see that the player not only plays, but plays well. Can it switch from channel to channel? A lot of times, it will go from 1-2, 2-3, and 3-4 well, but it will get stuck when going from 4-1.
How well it plays also depends on the components inside, and the tape head itself. Make sure to test about 5 or so different tapes, because people abused those tapes like crazy. A lot of pushing and pulling, yanking, and throwing caused damage to the tape itself, so it also depends on the quality of the tape itself. If the deck ate up the tape, some people would try to wind it back up, with a few people doing it backwards. You can generally tell when you look at the front where the tape is at, and see if it's the regular brown tape or the other side, which is closer to grey.
When you pop a tape in, some tapes may not go in. Reason? Labels also made quadraphonic 8-tracks, and those tapes will *NOT* properly on standard stereo decks. Instead, you will hear the front channels or the back/side channels (depending on how you position the speakers) at any given time, but not all four at once.
A quad 8-track has an extra notch/gap on the upper left of the tape, like this:
If you get yourself a quad 8-track tape player, they are backwards compatible, which means you can play both quad 8-tracks and standard stereo tapes.
Some players will hook up to your current receiver or stereo (or computer if you want to do transfers), while others you can just hook up old speakers to it (i.e. they are self contained). If you find a player, when you get it home immediately clean the head and roller with rubbing alcohol. It is then you'll see how much use and abuse that player has had. Those players haven't been used in 20-30 years.
As for tapes snapping, you can repair the tape if you want, but keep in mind that those tapes go for 10 to 25 cents at thrift stores. It's not a big deal. One of the benefits is being able to find someone who is selling his entire jazz 8-track collection, and all you want to do is listen before opting to buy the pricey LP.
Or, you can buy 10 8-tracks for the cost of an album at a thrift store, so if you've been curious about all of those Mantovani's or Merrill Womack albums, you can get them.
A bit about audio quality. An 8-track tape moves at a pace of 1 7/8 ips, at the most. Consumer reel-to-reels moved at 7??ips, 15ips if you were hi-pro (although a lot of albums also came out as 3 3/4ips, especially those two-for-one deals). 15ips is considered "studio quality", 30ips is better and tape hiss is almost non-existent in the final recording. So imagine a tape moving at 1 7/8 ips. It's good for what it is, but you have your share of hiss, muddiness, etc. One of the benefits of an 8-track is that if you equalize it right, you get some incredible low-end frequencies from it. In the 80's when compact disc technology was being explored, no one wanted to master from vinyl because CD's were meant to be clear from crackle and pop. Some bootleggers would master from 8-track tapes, in terms of releasing a CD of an album that was long out of print. Quality was muddy, and 10 years later, the smarter bootlegger realized that mastering from vinyl was 100 times better, and often times a good vinyl transfer/needle drop was a lot better than what would be officially released. For years, 8-track tape players, cassette decks, and reel-to-reel tape machines did not have Dolby. By the time companies put Dolby on the decks and labels started releasing 8-track tapes with noise reduction, 8-tracks were on their way out.
However, if you have mixers and/or know how to play with EQ, an 8-track tape player can sound very good. They are reliable if you handle the tapes and player properly.
Plus, it's all about the bootleg tapes that were sold at truck stops, or the homemade tapes with custom mixes, or finding a tape thinking it's Hawkwind, but finding a lady singing along to Kansas songs.
john, you seem like an 8-track buff, do you have quite a collection? i love 8-tracks but surprisingly enough, i can never find them in town anymore. id love to see a shot of some 8-track heat...
I had a decent collection in the mid-90's, nothing heavy like that guy from Gumball (Malcolm Riviera) who ended up trashing his entire collection. He and the band had stumbled over the infamous "8-Track Mountain":
http://www.chiprowe.com/articles/gumball.html
http://www.8trackheaven.com/gumball.html
I would have been in that 8-track documentary had I not moved into a real job at the same time the guy started driving around filming his movie. I admired the goofiness of the format more than anything, and the ease of finding 40 albums for $10 or less. Plus, to hear a well known album divided into four sections, where the songs may be rearranged, or songs will fade out after two minutes, KA-CHONGK!, then fade in.
I still would like to get the 8-track of Pink Floyd's Animals[/b], just to have the full version of "Pigs On The Wing" that isn't on any PF album or CD. It has since been released on a Snowy White compilation (he played the electric guitar solo that's heard in the song, and toured with the group from 1975-1981, and has worked with Roger Waters over the years), but it's a tape not commonly found, probably for that reason alone.
I am of the 80's Walkman cassette generation too, but I remember when 8-tracks were plentiful. Head to the 50th State Fair, hop on the ferris wheel, see the attendant pop in the blue tape. Or when I was 6 years old, hearing the ice cream man, running to the truck, getting a Drumstick and seeing the white tape in the front. It was hokey, it was a dumb format, but it worked, and still works. More importantly, it's cheap, and as a way to discover albums on a budget, you can't beat that.