8 Track Flashback

[LG]

Hepcat I am stunned...

Why on earth would you want to spend that much money on an old 8-Track player?? Good lord you can get any number of high end cassette decks with that much money, and the sound is much better.

I missed 8 Tracks altogether, I did buy two for my older brother though, Ted Nugent's Double Live Gonzo, and J Geils Band Monkey Island...then cassettes pretty much extincted them.

Contrary to the digital phenomenon, I Still use my cassette deck, it's not that old and the tapes I have are excellent, just a little below CD quality. Besides I like fooling around with the old analog stuff too.

 

[METALPRIEST]

I wanna know what a Chinese Fire Drill is.

 

[taha]

Nac. Dragon

 

[Magic]

Those are funner than Ding Dong Ditching, MP

 

[Odysseus]

I never went the 8-track route nor did my older brother. It was mostly vinyl and then all cassettes for me. Before I installed A cassette deck in my car, I had an Audiovox FM converter hooked up. Remember those?

My good buddy Joe bought a brand new Chevrolet Camaro in late spring of 1979. Within a week, a Craig 8-track was installed along with a pair of nice speakers nestled in the rear package shelf. For the Craig's maiden voyage, a brand new Pink Floyd Dark Side Of The Moon filled the air. It was glorious!

Naturally, he began building a bit of library. Some frequent spinners were:

The Best Of The Guess Who Vol.2,
Lovin Spooful
Rush - 2112, Farewell and Archives
led Zeppelin II
The Monkees Greatest Hits
Aerosmith Toys In The Attic.

The 8-tracks always sounded great to me, especially on a nice stereo system but the tapes were huge and you did indeed sacrifice some major real estate in the front of the center console, under the dash. I recall quite a few tapes ending up getting baked if they were laying around the back seat or in the rear window.

Of course there is that familiar pause during side changes, almost always during a song. Routine but the occasional non-essential random concern would pop up often followed by an anonymous "who's camping".***:

 

[Cosmic Harmony]

I wanna know what a Chinese Fire Drill is.

When you have at least three other people in the car and you get stuck at a red light everyone piles out of the car and runs around to the opposite side of the car and tries to get back in before the light turns green.

 

[Hepcat]

Hepcat I am stunned...

Why on earth would you want to spend that much money on an old 8-Track player?? Good lord you can get any number of high end cassette decks with that much money, and the sound is much better.

Nostalgia. Keep in mind that I'm a collector by inclination. I like vintage equipment.

I've already bought a new old stock Garrard GT-55 turntable which represented the pinnacle of Garrard's technology in the seventies. All I need is a base, the dustcover and then I'll be ready to set it up with an Ortofon 2m Bronze cartridge

The reason I was dallying with respect to buying the Pioneer 8-track player though was that I wanted to get a really good cassette deck first, either a refurbished Nakamichi Dragon or a Pioneer CT-93 Reference/Elite deck.

 

[Dave78]

You made your own 8 tracks??!!! That's awesome. I never knew there were recordable blanks.

Of course you had to record them using an 8-Track tape deck that also had a record feature, which I don't think were all that common.

A friend of mine had one though, and one Summer afternoon I brought all of my BTO 8-Tracks over to his house to record a "Best Of" 8-Track tape. My first forey into the world of home recording.

And even though I had all the tracks worked out ahead of time, things were still slow going (perfectionist that I am), and he started to get a little ticked off at me for taking so long. Boo hoo! :mad

 

[Odysseus]

Nostalgia. Keep in mind that I'm a collector by inclination. I like vintage equipment.

The reason I was dallying with respect to buying the Pioneer 8-track player though was that I wanted to get a really good cassette deck first, either a refurbished Nakamichi Dragon or a Pioneer CT-93 Reference/Elite deck.

I've already bought this new old stock Garrard GT-55 turntable which represented the pinnacle of Garrard's technology in the seventies. All I need is a base, the dustcover and then I'll be ready to set it up with an Ortofon 2m Bronze cartridge:

On a different level, 8-tracks are hugely popular with the vintage muscle car guys. Most who have a vintage car or are restoring them, vehicles circa 1968 up thru around 1980, are also restoring them with the vintage OEM factory 8-track players for correctness and also for nostalgia reasons. They are quite popular. Tapes and players are snapped up quickly at all the swap meets.

My dad had a Garrard turntable for years Hep, vintage early 60's. My brother has it now as well as the dads vintage Ampex reel to reel. I managed to retain his circa 1964 Fisher tuner/receiver. It needs a going thru as it hasn't been used in eons but it's on my (long) list of things to do. In addition, I also have his other reel to reel, a Sony, circa 1980. It's mint but needs a new tape pick-up follower wheel or something like that. I'm no genius audiofile but I know enough to fix basic stuff when it comes to stereo equipment.

 

[Dave78]

On a different level, 8-tracks are hugely popular with the vintage muscle car guys. Most who have a vintage car or are restoring them, vehicles circa 1968 up thru around 1980, are also restoring them with the vintage OEM factory 8-track players for correctness and also for nostalgia reasons. They are quite popular. Tapes and players are snapped up quickly at all the swap meets.

That actually sounds pretty cool. All you'd need is an ice chest in the trunk for your beer and it's 1977 all over again.

Maybe I'll unload my 8-Tracks on Ebay afterall.