8-Tracks and Open-Reels: Who’s Got ‘Em and Whatcha Got?

@oldhvymec:   Ahh the good old days when we could drink and fix anything--ok, maybe not well but make it work.  Up until about 10 years ago i kept a Realistic 8 track player in my system just because i had a bunch of 8 track tapes i liked--i disagree with MC that the sound quality was the worst--it wasn't nearly as bad as most cassettes--but i do agree the mechanism was a crazy hassle.  I still have two R to R decks--an Akai GX-265D and a Sony TC-880 which i sent in for refurbishment almost a year ago and still haven't got a due date--i loved R to R solely b/c i could record a vinyl album once and keep it pristine and play R to R endlessly at parties.  Convenience mostly- the TT was always the best.

Prerorded 8-Tracks were usually better than preecorded cassettes, for a while. Sometimes you got lucky. Homemade 8-tr's almost as good as homemade cassettes  8-tr carts had the same track width and twice the speed. Radio PSA's used to be on carts late 60's.
My cassette mix tapes from driving days sound pretty good in the workshop on $20 auto reverse double well decks.
Reel to reel's time has past. I have a wall of tapes and a BQ II 4 channel and a Teac.

@fuzztone Yep, still have about 100 mix tapes I made in the 70-80's on a Nak. with Maxell tapes. Still sound fine. A friend of mine used to make 8-track recordings, but finally gave up when he kept recording over the beginning of the tapes. Pre-recorded did sound better. Great for parties as they sounded better when everyone was wasted and would just repeat over and over. 

I usually try to avoid absolutes but I think the 8-track may be hands-down the worst consumer audio format ever - perhaps even worse than 78 rpm shellacs. I never messed with it. A properly made cassette could walk all over any 8-track.

And yet, the 8-track has a relatively high fidelity cousin in the NAB tape cart, which looked very similar. Broadcast carts ran at 7.5 ips and the rubber roller wasn’t in the tape shell but in the tape deck itself. While there were plenty of bad sounding carts and decks, the best of them were very good, such as those from BE and ITC.