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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?

 

hilde45
dekay's avatar
dekay
5,854 posts
 

pehare:

Allman Bros Fillmore East is my most "remembered" tape along with Santana,  Ten Years After, Johnny Winter and the "Magic Carpet Ride" band.

I first heard a stereo cassette tape around 1971 (Advent player?) though I owned a mono cassette player/recorder (with a seperate microphone) years prior that my Grandfather gave me for X-mas.

It had an onboard AM/FM radio which allowed me to record songs from radio broadcast.

The 8-Track (installed in a 67 VW Bug) may have been a Kraco (sp?) or a Sound/Sonic something that came with plastic wedge shaped speakers.

 

DeKay

 

heretobuy
139 posts
 

8-track was superseded by a superior format and the audio industry's attitude about it was "let us never speak of it again." I actually owned a PlayTape cassette machine at one time, and boy did that format get dropped down the Memory Hole quick.

jtcf's avatar
jtcf
1,620 posts
 

I had a friend with an eight track player and at the time I thought it sounded great.Better than my cassette deck:-) A pleasant memory.

re-lar-kvothe's avatar
re-lar-kvothe
186 posts
 

mellifluous

I learnt a new word today. I can't wait to use it in normal conversation.

As Ron White once said, "It's a great day, Tater."

I had an 8-track player when I was 16, given to me by my uncle a few years prior. With my first real paycheck I bought a Kenwood receiver, a whole 18wpc and connected that tape player to the Kenwood. The first tape I played was my favorite album ever, Led Zeppelin ll. That was the end of my 8-track days as the tape was immediately eaten by that damned machine. I chalked it up to bad juju. The next thing I bought was a turntable and the rest as they say was/is history. And yes, my first LP purchase was Zep ll. 

jonwolfpell
470 posts
 

Hilarious Dekay! Made my day! Thanks 

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