Quality depends largely on the speakers more than it does the fact that the music storage is via digital or analog tape. True some producers during the end of the 8-track era didn't care that much and split songs with the track changes. But... early tapes were very carefully arrange so that the changes only occurred between songs. But to use a blanket judgmental statement such as you did in your post is disingenuous and ignorant. Nobody is forcing you or anyone to choose the format. You don't like it and you have a right to your opinion. I happen to believe and KNOW that the quality is and can sound as good as a CD with the right system. Very sorry you have your mind closed to the funkiest and most fun way to listen to tunes in the vintage automobile. Have a great rest of your weekend. By the way, to all you who are interested, I finally picked up a nice in-dash AM/FM 8-track player to restore. Working on the article and will post soon as I can.
I don't know how old you are but I bought 8 tracks tapes when they were a brand new thing and from the beginning they split tracks in the middle. I remember the track change points when I hear the songs on the radio or on a CD to this day.
The In-dash Player The list of makers of indash AM/FM 8-track players was as long as your arm back in the day. Bigger and better names are of course desirable if one is to find a machine 45 years old and still serviceable. Some of the names to look for in a player, both in-dash and underdash are Autosonic, Panasonic, Craig/Pioneer, Motorola, Muntz, RCA, Sanyo and of course Learjet. This player is one of the cheap ones, a Kraco, and was free to me. Sometimes free is good and sometimes not so good. The first sign of worry is noticed right after pulling the cover off is the drive belt has been replaced with a rubber band. This is not acceptable as the rubber in a rubber band is too soft and stretchy. While the player will work, the sounds tend to speed up and slow down as the tension gives and takes. Better solution is to find a correct replacement. To do that take a string or strip of paper and wrap it around both pullys to form a loop. Measure that loop's length when squashed flat and that is the size you want to purchase. (or measure the length of paper strip and divide by 2). Best source I know of is NORVAC electronics. I have one in town and they have a whole rack of rubber drive belts for everything from mini tape drives to video recorders to telephone answering machines. The second sign that someone else had been here before was the tuner shaft shows signs of repair with a badly done solder joint. But... lets say those two are fixable, which they are if the brand was worth saving. Some other things to consider are the lights. Each indicator requires either a light bulb or LED. If any of those are burned out, the face plate needs to be removed and the light source repaired/replaced. Not easy but again fixable by carefully removing the offending item and searching out the correct replacement from NORVAC. At this stage a required tool will be a small pencil type electronics soldering iron and some electronics solder and none acid flux. Inside we see the camel that broke the straws back. In other words if all the other stuff was in perfect shape and this was the only thing wrong... I still would have trashed it. The head is damaged. (B) See how it points to the ground? Either someone was messing with the screws or something foreign was jammed into the player. A worn or damaged head can possibly be replaced but alignment is very difficult. (A) is the sensor which changes the tracks when the sense tape slides past closing the circuit. (C) is the capstan drive connected directly above by the large pulley. I rarely see either of these damaged or too worn to work correctly. Dirty... yeah, but never too worn. The red arrow is pointing to a piece of trash not belonging to this player. So that is what can go wrong with an in-dash player. Other problems that occur are scratchy volume controls which are nearly impossible to replace/fix. And a poor or damaged tuner circuit which results in bad reception. Hopefully I can find a nice survivable example some day.
J..J..J....i need your address....ive got about 20 in my store...5 new in box !! Im gonna take some pics just to make ya crazy i try not to let them follow me home....
Yeah, I have a couple too. What I really want is a good name brand like "Lear Jet", "Marantz" or "Ampex". Saturday is swap meet day in Albany. Taking some time to search... let you know if I find something.
you mean you WOULDNT want a Holiday?? brand new in the box????....its only AM/8....no F/M... (im here to torment you)
You have no idea how much I appreciate this post. I graduated HS in '78 and still love the 8-tracks even tho' I don't think I have one that works anymore, but tons of tapes. Your info is helpful. Time to start pulling them apart to see what's going on. thx mon'!
UPDATE!!! Been a while since I posted here. So thought I would add some more info for those who want to repair their vintage tape player back to operating status. The 8-track player in the '58 Surf Rat stopped playing, but I still had the FM radio so lived with it for a few weeks before breaking down and repairing what I thought was a broken belt. * (the cause of most 8-track failures) Started out by removing the player from the dash.... ... then removed all the screws on the outside case. That is the case-half that appears to be the most prominent... and THAT's usually the primary half which encloses the belt drive. The other half can remain in place. On some players it may be only a small cover over just the belt. Remove the belt and take it to your local electronics store. My store is NORVAC Electronics which I feel blessed to have such close access to. The isle at the store containing the belts at first seems a little overwhelming... ... but what you need to find is this little tool. What that tool is, is a device to measure your belt both width and length so you can find the right one out of the hundreds on the rack. Mine was 9.7 long and about 3/16 inch wide so finding a replacement was a cinch. If your belt is broken, rotted or missing... one can wrap a strip of masking tape around both pulleys and use that to measure the correct length. But.... choose a belt off the rack that is slightly (1/8" - 1/4") shorter than the length of tape so it has to stretch slightly to remain in place and ensure no slippage. Back in the parking lot I opened the bag and popped the new belt into place! With a tape in the drive - sweet Debbie Harry's voice belted once again out of the speakers! Whoo hoo!!!! Back together again we have TUNES! * Still not sure what caused the player to stop working... but being that the belt was old, stretched and needed replacing anyway. Plus... once back together it worked! So I must have stumbled onto the "fix" one way or another. And isn't that how most thing are fixed?
So what's the deal with a tape that sounds like it's in slow motion or goes at different speeds (ie wavy voice)? then stops all together. I want to eventually put an under-dash in the Tiki wagon, but all the tape players I have either work or sound like crap-ola.???
Okay, I got to thinking that there is another source of such problems and that is the capstan drive could be dirty. Another problem that can occur is that the foam pad behind the tape in the cassette is worn and fails to keep the tape firmly against the player head. This problem is repaired on page 2 - 3 of this thread. However that problem is only with select tapes. If the problem persists regardless of what tape cassette is in the player then clean the capstan shaft and replace the belt. BTW the belt was only $3.00.
Ah yes.. the ol' CAPSTAN drive and shaft... that would have been my first guess... HA! Oh Lordy.. guess I just need to roll up the ol' sleeves and dissect the thing.. So where'd you pick up the 8-track knowledge and lingo? I'd love to put one in everything I drive. Just takes me back to HS... love it... and thanks for the info!
