June 03, 2004

8-Track Heaven! Before iPod, mini-disc, CD, Walkman, Bonefone, and assorted crappy cassette players---the perfect accessory to a tricked out bubble-top Ford Van with Mag 600 wheels, dual pipes, and matching bongs...
posted by anonymous 20 years ago
  • Ah, nostalgia makes for great posts, doesn't it? (Then again, the same could be said about me and Bob Dylan...) NOT!
  • Would you hate me if I said I'd never so much as seen an 8-track before?
  • yes.
  • No.
  • Maybe.
  • After much meditation I'm afraid I still love you. And anyway, I only vaguely remember 8-tracks from the heyday. As an audiophile, I have a love of old technology. The 8-track didn't last long, anyway. Massive great big cartridges, they had. Not a bad design, really, if rather large. Simpler, the better. And, in many ways, rather more superior to cassette tape in potential audio quality.
  • ThinkGeek has a cassette tape PC drive for sale, which is a damn good idea. But they need, NEED an eight-track equivalent.
  • I remember the 8-track era....but I don't miss it. The tapes were easy to repair and splice, it need be, but storage of the tapes was a hassle so not handy for travel. Sound quality wasn't bad. I have my collection of tapes intact but no player. Btw tracicle- no, no hate here :)
  • trac, they were ugly, hard to store, and seemed to get really dusty really fast.
  • (that said, my aunt and uncle had an 8-track player on their pontoon boat. lord, that was groovy.) (same aunt and uncle had bedsheets featuring stick figures doing naughty naughty things.) (oh how i love my aunt and uncle.)
  • 8-tracks were pure evil. Most had the annoying habit of switching tracks mid-song, with a noticable gap in the audio. Cassettes were a godsend.
  • Jerry--Don't be so hard on yourself-- I though your post about Dylan was tres fascinating--only I wish the interviewer had asked ol' Bobby why his singing voice has been perceptively weirder through the years ("Ya Gotta Serve Somebody" is the last song I didn't need to have a lyric sheet to follow along with, and that was, what '80? '79?) AND why he makes such SHITTY movies (remember "Reynaldo and Clara"?)...
  • The 8-track didn't last long, anyway. They were invented in 1956.