Welcome to Hell, here's your 8-Track

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. 

Hilarious Dekay! Made my day! Thanks 

The sound quality of the prerecorded 8-tracks was pretty abysmal but then so were many of the prerecorded cassettes. One thing that bugged me was the LONG and totally unnecessary fade-out and fade-in that made the track change seem like some elaborate, mysterious process. Always striving to improve the quality of the audio experience, I decided to buy an 8-track recorder and tape selections from LP. Not only did the sound quality greatly improved, but people were astounded that my tapes didn't do the fade.

I remember the matchbook trick being used to provide better contact between the capstan and pinch roller, otherwise the tape would run slow or warble. It didn't help that the tape had a healthy dose of lubricant that helped it ease it out at the hub. This would, of course, contaminate the capstan and pinch roller, so it was a constant battle to maintain enough friction to drive it. Then, to make things even worse, some of the tape manufacturers began making the pinch rollers out of hard plastic!

Among the struggles to keep these things moving there would eventually come the inevitable "eaten tape". After fishing several feet of tape out of the player, you then had a tape that couldn't be played unless you knew the secret to getting that tape to wind back in the cartridge. A sharp tug on the supply side of the tape would spin the reel with enough force to snap the tape back in the cartridge.

Just remembered a guy (Roger) I occasionaly hung out with in the 80's.

He had an 8-Track player in his old Dodge Dart, but he only had "one" tape which was David Bowie "Diamond Dogs".

When we played darts @ Kings Head and The Cat and the Fiddle - Roger (born in the American South) pulled off a British accent that fooled the Bri'ts we were playing with.

He wasn't very good @ darts, but it was worth losing just to see/hear the show.

DeKay