And I don't mean trains. Anyone still have an 8 track player? Approx 25, some demos that came with new cars, but mostly pop ie Sinatra etc. Condition and play-ability unknown, and no way to check them. If interested contact my email

marv

Or maybe they were called cartridge tapes, and not 8 track. Seems to me they were 4 track, whereas the newer replacement cassettes were 8 track. Anyone know? I was mid 20's then, and other things on my mind.

marv

:And I don't mean trains. Anyone still have an 8 track player? Approx 25, some demos that came with new cars, but mostly pop ie Sinatra etc. Condition and play-ability unknown, and no way to check them. If interested contact my email
:
:marv
:

Hi Marv,
Yes,I still have an 8-track player.Haven't used it for a while.They are called 8-tracks because there are 4 program tracks with 2 audio channels(left and right) each.
I am 44 now,and 8-tracks were just starting to fade out when I got to that age where I was starting to think of other things.
You should have seen the look on my 22 year old nephew's face the day I showed him an 8-track tape and then got out the player and demonstrated it.He looked like a monkey studying a Rubik's(spelling?) cube!

:And I don't mean trains. Anyone still have an 8 track player? Approx 25, some demos that came with new cars, but mostly pop ie Sinatra etc. Condition and play-ability unknown, and no way to check them. If interested contact my email
:
:marv
:

Well, it was great while it lasted. Hid a player inside the gutted glove box of my 66 Riviera. Used PolyPlanar speakers on the headliner for the stereo effect. Lived in a dry/dusty (New Mexico) environ, which played havoc with the mechanism and tapes. No player in my apt, so often sat in my car, emptying a few brewski's 'til the wee hours, playing sad C&W music. Ray Price lives on.

marv

::And I don't mean trains. Anyone still have an 8 track player? Approx 25, some demos that came with new cars, but mostly pop ie Sinatra etc. Condition and play-ability unknown, and no way to check them. If interested contact my email
::
::marv
::
:
:I've been a sound engineer most of my life, starting as the AV kid in school. I've been a recording engineer, a live sound man for groups like Canned Heat, and I've designed sound systems. I personally think that the 8 track was with out a doubt the best sounding audio format ever!!!! No scratchiness like LP's, no hiss like cassette, and no horrible compression like CD, (which I personally think is the WORST audio format ever). Heck, the play head was as big as your thumb, it had tons of output, and the frequency range was equal to most professional reel to reel's. KING LEAR FOREVER!!
:

::And I don't mean trains. Anyone still have an 8 track player? Approx 25, some demos that came with new cars, but mostly pop ie Sinatra etc. Condition and play-ability unknown, and no way to check them. If interested contact my email
::
::marv
::
:You are right!!! I have one of those late 70's low wattage transistorized stereos with the turntable on top and the built in 8 track player and they do sound rich even on these stereos.Now I am motivated to get an 8 track player and hook it up to my Silvertone 6BQ5 stereo!!!!!!
:I've been a sound engineer most of my life, starting as the AV kid in school. I've been a recording engineer, a live sound man for groups like Canned Heat, and I've designed sound systems. I personally think that the 8 track was with out a doubt the best sounding audio format ever!!!! No scratchiness like LP's, no hiss like cassette, and no horrible compression like CD, (which I personally think is the WORST audio format ever). Heck, the play head was as big as your thumb, it had tons of output, and the frequency range was equal to most professional reel to reel's. KING LEAR FOREVER!!
:

:::And I don't mean trains. Anyone still have an 8 track player? Approx 25, some demos that came with new cars, but mostly pop ie Sinatra etc. Condition and play-ability unknown, and no way to check them. If interested contact my email
:::
:::marv
:::
::You are right!!! I have one of those late 70's low wattage transistorized stereos with the turntable on top and the built in 8 track player and they do sound rich even on these stereos.Now I am motivated to get an 8 track player and hook it up to my Silvertone 6BQ5 stereo!!!!!!
::I've been a sound engineer most of my life, starting as the AV kid in school. I've been a recording engineer, a live sound man for groups like Canned Heat, and I've designed sound systems. I personally think that the 8 track was with out a doubt the best sounding audio format ever!!!! No scratchiness like LP's, no hiss like cassette, and no horrible compression like CD, (which I personally think is the WORST audio format ever). Heck, the play head was as big as your thumb, it had tons of output, and the frequency range was equal to most professional reel to reel's. KING LEAR FOREVER!!
::
:
Back when I worked for Delta, and when we used tape in the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR), never "black box", the tape mechansim was the same as the Lear 8-track, only it used mono for four tracks (three pilots and one Coockpit Area Microphone or CAM} and recorded the last thirty minutes of flight before starting over. The tape was in a mu-metal box for magnetic shielding, then a pack of wet mud (!) for thermal shielding, and then a few pounds of metal for everything else protection. The tape and the record, playback (for monitoring) and erase heads were the only things that were saved. The rest of the box perished like everything else. The same is done today, only with memory chips. This is a little off-topic, but I hope someone finds it interesting.
Lewis

::::And I don't mean trains. Anyone still have an 8 track player? Approx 25, some demos that came with new cars, but mostly pop ie Sinatra etc. Condition and play-ability unknown, and no way to check them. If interested contact my email
::::
::::marv
::::
:::You are right!!! I have one of those late 70's low wattage transistorized stereos with the turntable on top and the built in 8 track player and they do sound rich even on these stereos.Now I am motivated to get an 8 track player and hook it up to my Silvertone 6BQ5 stereo!!!!!!
:::I've been a sound engineer most of my life, starting as the AV kid in school. I've been a recording engineer, a live sound man for groups like Canned Heat, and I've designed sound systems. I personally think that the 8 track was with out a doubt the best sounding audio format ever!!!! No scratchiness like LP's, no hiss like cassette, and no horrible compression like CD, (which I personally think is the WORST audio format ever). Heck, the play head was as big as your thumb, it had tons of output, and the frequency range was equal to most professional reel to reel's. KING LEAR FOREVER!!
:::
::
:
:
:Back when I worked for Delta, and when we used tape in the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR), never "black box", the tape mechansim was the same as the Lear 8-track, only it used mono for four tracks (three pilots and one Coockpit Area Microphone or CAM} and recorded the last thirty minutes of flight before starting over. The tape was in a mu-metal box for magnetic shielding, then a pack of wet mud (!) for thermal shielding, and then a few pounds of metal for everything else protection. The tape and the record, playback (for monitoring) and erase heads were the only things that were saved. The rest of the box perished like everything else. The same is done today, only with memory chips. This is a little off-topic, but I hope someone finds it interesting.
:Lewis
:

:::::And I don't mean trains. Anyone still have an 8 track player? Approx 25, some demos that came with new cars, but mostly pop ie Sinatra etc. Condition and play-ability unknown, and no way to check them. If interested contact my email
:::::
:::::marv
:::::
::::You are right!!! I have one of those late 70's low wattage transistorized stereos with the turntable on top and the built in 8 track player and they do sound rich even on these stereos.Now I am motivated to get an 8 track player and hook it up to my Silvertone 6BQ5 stereo!!!!!!
::::I've been a sound engineer most of my life, starting as the AV kid in school. I've been a recording engineer, a live sound man for groups like Canned Heat, and I've designed sound systems. I personally think that the 8 track was with out a doubt the best sounding audio format ever!!!! No scratchiness like LP's, no hiss like cassette, and no horrible compression like CD, (which I personally think is the WORST audio format ever). Heck, the play head was as big as your thumb, it had tons of output, and the frequency range was equal to most professional reel to reel's. KING LEAR FOREVER!!
::::
:::
::
::
::Back when I worked for Delta, and when we used tape in the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR), never "black box", the tape mechansim was the same as the Lear 8-track, only it used mono for four tracks (three pilots and one Coockpit Area Microphone or CAM} and recorded the last thirty minutes of flight before starting over. The tape was in a mu-metal box for magnetic shielding, then a pack of wet mud (!) for thermal shielding, and then a few pounds of metal for everything else protection. The tape and the record, playback (for monitoring) and erase heads were the only things that were saved. The rest of the box perished like everything else. The same is done today, only with memory chips. This is a little off-topic, but I hope someone finds it interesting.
::Lewis
::
:
:And I bet those tapes sounded better and were clearer than the chips. It would have been neat if you could have substituted a Charlie Pride tape just once to freak 'em out. Ha ha
:
We didn't get to see the accident/accident tapes, but the channels on units removed for routine overhaul could be listened to seperately in our shop. The hand mikes sounded pretty good, but the CAM channel sounded like it was being recorded in a boiler factory.
The folks at the NTSB had elaborate filters and things to dig out the sounds and make transcripts out of the noise. As to Charlie Pride, the guy that overhauled the CVRs didn't have much of a sense of humor when it came to those recorders. Neither did the FAA.
Lewis