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Welcome to Hell, here's your 8-Track

Neil Postman once said, 

"Anyone who has studied the history of technology knows that technological change is always a Faustian bargain: Technology giveth and technology taketh away, and not always in equal measure. A new technology sometimes creates more than it destroys. Sometimes, it destroys more than it creates. But it is never one-sided."

I'm pretty sure that we know that the 8-track was more bad than good.

Question for audiophiles here who might know -- was there anything good about 8-track technology that was lost when it went extinct? And what was that good, audio-wise, specifically?

 

128x128hilde45
dekay's avatar
dekay
5,652 posts
 

The 8-Track was pretty much responsible for me coming close to acing my ACT/SAT tests.

Remembering which matchbook(s) and where to place it/them for each 8-Track (while stoned) was quite a mental workout.

 

DeKay

 

fuzztone's avatar
fuzztone
5,634 posts
 

missing ehen it went extinct?

I don’t believe that intelligent individuals ponder this.

immatthewj
2,198 posts
 

The title of this thread made me think of my "Alice Cooper Goes To Hell" 8-Track.

Anyway, I remember back in th early to mid 70's getting a portable cassette player for X-mas one year.  In the little town we lived in, I could find very few prerecorded cassettes.  (I did wind up with a couple by Jim Croce & Tony Orland & Dawn and some pirated looking stuff by CCR & Johnny Cash and Three Dog Night and I ordered some stuff that was advertised on TV, but there sure wasn't a lot in that town available.  So I joined Longines Symphonette Record Club and ordered 12 cassettes, but the ba$tards sent me 12 8-tracks.  I sent them back and told them that they screwed up, and they sent me 12 more 8-tracks!  Anyway, in '77 I put an 8-track player ( the first of a few) and started buying 8-trracks.  . 

pehare's avatar
pehare
835 posts
 

Dekay sure LOL, cough cough, shoved in just right on the underside of the case.  Denatured wood alcohol & q-tips to clean the heads.  And the hokey vinyl covered cases for them that looked like cheap luggage.  Anything detroit built had 6x9's in the rear window deck.  You knew when you bought a double length tape like Allman Bros Fillmore East it was surely going to be short lived.  Nostalgic and fun times.  

satch0922
10 posts
 

Horrible dynamic range, horrible frequency response, horrible s/n ratio, double tracking .... so to answer your question, NO. 🤣✌🏻

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