2011 RIP auto cassettes

bob urz wrote in news:ij1a45$koc$ snipped-for-privacy@speranza.aioe.org:

Bleah.

Here, let me help by providing an UNbroken link:

I remember when they were called "Compact Cassettes". They were actually contemporary competitors with 8-tracks in the '70s. But 8-tracks were so awful that the Compact Cassette became the standard.

:cassettes". They were

As i remember, the early cassettes fidelity was not good and they were more expensive. The 8track was not a terrible medium, but its endless loop format caused reliability issues and the splice failing at the metal foil end would put one out of commission. and issues with the sliding tape heads alignment could cause crosstalk issues.

In the early 70's, 8tracks still ruled. There were even the bastard 4 channel quad 8track units for a short time for those who wanted the short lived quadraphonic era. As i recall, my stereo in my 68 cuda was a Craig S280 under-dash 8T pullout unit with dual 12" speakers in the flip door under the rear glass. It was a hot setup for the time. I think in those days you could have got a quad 8track in a Lincoln or such and listened to Pink Floyd in quad if you had the bucks.

Cassettes eventually got better and cheaper and the rest is history. eventually, CD's will go the same route.

bob

CD and DVD aren't far behind. I'm not a big music guy, but all my MP3s are on a 16GB thumb drive I plug into my trucks USB port. The nav/radio has a hard drive and supports a jukebox function there, but I find no reason to use it, the thumb drive is more convenient. DVD support on the nav/radio is nice, but I think before long we will just be using MPEG4s on the same thumb drives. An auto environment isn't real good for optical media anyway, too difficult to avoid scratchs, smudges and dust.

Not to mention putting small precision machinery in an environment of high vibration and wide temperature excursions. At this time I'm reluctantly concluding that what was once a fairly high end Pioneer CD receiver in my car has reduced to a nice AM/FM radio with a long skinny ventilation aperture in front. There are things that just get better as it becomes feasible and affordable to make them more and more completely solid state.

I've still got the odd box of cassettes here and there, but haven't played one in years and wouldn't swear that any of them have survived. In fact, the only cassette I've seen in a while (weeks? months?) was a smashed one at the recycling bins. It reminded me of the days when you'd see disembowelled cassettes (and 8-track cartridges) by the side of the road all the time because people tired of putting up with a defective one would grab it by the tape and sling it out the car window.

Cassette made a lot of sense in its day, especially inasmuch as it was the first cheap, user-friendly, and technically decent *recording* technology (dubbing vinyl records onto cassettes for use in the car was among the common applications), but its day was a couple of technological generations ago.

--Joe

In message , Tegger writes

8-tracks just never caught on this side of the pond, though it's well know that after the lubrication had worn off of the tape, if you didn't get it out of the machine fast then you were in for a long bout of unwinding tape from the capstan.

My favorite was the mechanical squealing noise that came from the cart when this happened.

bob

bob urz wrote in news:ij1cg2$qqu$ snipped-for-privacy@speranza.aioe.org:

That's what I meant by "awful".

Compact Cassettes were more reliable.

Ah, so that's what we had in the '70 Ford. Channel 3 disappeared withinn weeks of installation.

That's /definitely/ the trend. Solid-state storage has plummetted in price; it's the way things will go in the future.

Ad absurdum per aspera wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@8g2000prb.googlegroups.com:

What would happen... the player would grab the tape and refuse to let go. When you ejected the cassette, the tape would remain wound around the mechanism and you'd end up pulling several yards of tape out of the cassette in your efforts at disengaging the cassette from the player (while driving, yet; no laws against that...). The disembowelled cassette ended up getting tossed out the window in frustration, the tape festooning the roadside, and blowing in the wind.

An 8-Track would have been boss in my 67 Barracuda Coupe - as would be a working radio. No matter, I enjoyed driving it anyway.

In this age of random access music, the young people probably wouldn't be able to comprehend how music was laid out on an 8-track nor appreciate how little space CD take up.

An 8-Track player came with the stereo system in my parent's house which was purchased through the Columbia Record Club. Oddly enough, the only 2 tapes we had were Laura Nero and Andy Williams. They came with the player and my guess is that the system was mostly a way to encourage people to buy more records and 8-Track tapes from the club. As far as I know, we never did buy any 8-Track tapes. I had some fun pushing the buttons on the machine and marveling at how you could change music so fast. A CD or MP3 player could probably be set up to act exactly like an

8-Track player although that would probably be a little nuts.

Guilty! But, I had a Sony 8 track recorder, and a pile of blanks, so I'd just record another one...

i remember being a kid of modest means, i rarely went out and bought new tapes. I remember shopping discount records stores having tapes by alpine and such. Tapes like "sounds like credence CWR" no wonder they were cheap... I eventually got a Akai 8track recorder and made most of my own from albums. I guess i was ripping music before it became popular to do so.

my cuda was a 68 fastback. That fold-down backseat got a workout in those days. Getting the butt cheek marks off the inside of the huge rear window was problematic at times ;)

bob

Those Barracuda fastback were the first hatchbacks, it seems. My coupe didn't have the folding backseat. I guess there would have been no point in that because the angle of the glass made it tougher to get a decent cheek print. The 70s pretty much spelled the end of any chance of getting a decent "double bubble" but the golden age of butt cheek printing will always be fondly remembered.

8-track tape is not bad as long as you have decent equipment and media. Although the format certainly has its limitations, the real problem was the low-quality merchandise that flooded the market. For detailed info on the wonders of 8-track tape, visit 8-track heaven at:

I have 8-track players in all my cars and use them on a daily basis. Most of the carts, now 30+ years old, need only pressure pad and splice replacement to continue playing properly if they need anything at all. The players typically require occasional cleaning, lubrication, and belt replacement. (Also I have cassette adapters so I can also play compact cassettes in the players.)

What is the longest tape practical in an 8-track? What is the tape speed? My guess is that they had the potential for a better sound than the cassette mainly because the tape was probably faster than a cassette. Thanks.

In message , dsi1 writes

8-tracks ran at 3 3/4 inches a minute, double that of compact cassette, however they had 8 (hence the name) tracks on 1/4 inch tape, whereas compact cassette tape was half as wide but with only two tracks if mono or four tracks if stereo. Whilst it might seem that the 8-track could be superior, cassette had the big advantage of Dolby from early on. What's more, cassette didn't need lubricated tape, the 8-track did.

The longest 8-track tapes I have are 120-minute, but those are pretty rare. 90-minute carts are not too uncommon. However 8-tracks are more typically 40 to 60 minutes. Tape speed is 3-3/4 IPS, so early on they did have better sound than cassettes which run at 1-7/8 IPS. Of course the compact cassette's sound did improve over time as that format developed.

I have a couple of cassette recorders with Dolby, they are Pioneer and Wollensack decks. However none of my players are Dolby-equipped, I don't think I've ever seen a car 8T with Dolby.

Thanks for the info. OTOH, 8 tracks on a tape twice as wide as one with

4 tracks would seem to be equal. Are you saying that the tapes had to be lubricated because the feed was from the center of reel? I guess that makes sense. I can't say that I understand how you can add tape to the outside of a spool and take it out from the center without having the whole thing continuously growing unless you somehow have the entire roll of tape sliding throughout the entire reel. It's kind of non-intuitive. :-)

In message , dsi1 writes

You've got it about right, because of the relative speed of each coil of tape to the one either side meant that it had to be lubricated to work properly, and the extended playing times were normally achieved with using the tape in a mobius loop format, which while doubling playing time, had serious consequences for cross-talk.