8 Track Player

[tomdaugherty]

I was cleaning out the garage and came across this 8 track player. Can't find any info on it. It works great, too. Any body ever see one of these or know anything about it? It's made by Autostereo, Inc. Tom

[Æ]

I was cleaning out the garage and came across this 8 track player. Can't find any info on it. It works great, too. Any body ever see one of these or know anything about it? It's made by Autostereo, Inc. Tom

Your garage too I bet. Can't remember how it got there? LOL
Looks like a collectors item. Clean it up and list it on eBay.

[Wolf]

Looks Nice! Nothing like the metal-retro junk you normally see in an 8-track player. I'm with Alan- list it on E-bay, or use it if you have a lot of them.

Later,
Wolf

[tomdaugherty]

Thanks for the replies. I thought about e-bay but, I might keep it. I like the looks and simplicity of it and I have about 20 tapes for it. Tom

[robwest]

Check the main rubber rollers on the tapes. Several of mine have crumbled and it's a pain to open the unit up and clean the bits out. You might want to open it anyway and grease the gears and clean the head and contacts before using it much.

[just4fun]

Hello,
I have one also. Did you ever find out much about it? Very Very curious.

[killersoundz]

8-track has to be the worst medium ever made. But nostalgic. :)

[Sydney]

8-track has to be the worst medium ever made. But nostalgic. :)
LOL
I do remember the tricks used to keep them working "marginally"
Matchbooks jamming and tape-snapping techniques to "fix" the tape tension.
Guys with headphones conking out to a LS 8-track that looped all night.

Someone did try to market a dash mounted 45 player :confused:

[killersoundz]

Yeah, my buddy has an 8 track/record console player in his basement with a bunch of old rock tapes. He got it at the goodwill for like $20. Out of like 50 8-tracks only 5 of them work ok, it's hilarious trying to play them though you have to move them around and sometimes they go super slow mo.

I was shocked to learn you couldn't even fast forward or rewind it. Awful!!

[rhubarb9999]

Sad thing about 8 tracks are that they had the potential to sound better than cassettes. They had the same tape width per track, but ran at twice the speed (3 3/4 IPS instead of 1 7/8).

They were always seen as a 'low end' format for cars so nobody ever built a truly high quality player/recorder.

[killersoundz]

Sad thing about 8 tracks are that they had the potential to sound better than cassettes. They had the same tape width per track, but ran at twice the speed (3 3/4 IPS instead of 1 7/8).

They were always seen as a 'low end' format for cars so nobody ever built a truly high quality player/recorder.

That's a good point. Maybe if they just made them able to rewind and fast forward. :) I know the way they are made prohibits that...but shucks.. I think if I were designing a medium in 1950 one of the top priorities would be to be able to pick a song.

[tomzarbo]

You could fast forward 1/4 of the songs with just a push of a button, No? It's better than nuttin!

TomZ

[billfitzmaurice]

Sad thing about 8 tracks are that they had the potential to sound better than cassettes. They had the same tape width per track, but ran at twice the speed (3 3/4 IPS instead of 1 7/8).

They were always seen as a 'low end' format for cars so nobody ever built a truly high quality player/recorder.
8 track died because you couldn't easily record your own. Cassette became the standard because you could. It was all about utility, not fidelity.

[martyh]

Well, I recorded a few 8-tracks in my day, but the damage that occured over repeated plays did spell the demise of the format. You can't rewind an 8-track, but back in my broadcast days we had a machine that would fast-forward the tape to the splice-that way when we recorded a commercial we didn't have to worry about the audio burp of recording over the splice. In commercial prerecorded format I believe there was a small metal splice (about the thickness of old chewing gum foil) that electrically switched tracks from 1 to 2 to 3 to four.

I'd love to own that wonderful garage find!

[spasticteapot]

8 track died because you couldn't easily record your own. Cassette became the standard because you could. It was all about utility, not fidelity.

And the fact that the !@#$!@$ tapes ate themselves quite frequently.

[NickS]

Are you sure it's an 8 track? Looks more like an Earl "Madman" Muntz 4 track player using a Fidelipac cartridge (no pinch roller in cartridge) designed by George Eash. I think these cartridges were used in cart players at radio stations for commercials, jingles, etc.

[Froste]

Looks like a 4-track unit to me too. They came out a few years before the 8-track units. I had a car unit in '67-68, only problem with it was the tape would fall off the deck, if not playing (locked in). Was the 1st in car tape player I had ever seen.

[martyh]

Are you sure it's an 8 track? Looks more like an Earl "Madman" Muntz 4 track player using a Fidelipac cartridge (no pinch roller in cartridge) designed by George Eash. I think these cartridges were used in cart players at radio stations for commercials, jingles, etc.

I'm guessing that the levers on the right control the pinch roller - I spent many an hour cleaning those with q-tips and rubbing alcohol -and the drive motor, but with the volume and tone controls on the front it's definitely not commercial audio gear.