( Video ) My 8 track AKAI machine in action

[Audio Al]

Not sure if anyone will be interested in this ?

Its my AKAI CR-81D 8 track player in action

Sorry it a bit out of focus , dont know why , If anyone would like to see it not out of focus I will do a video on my DSLR in stead of this compact , hopefully it will be better quality

Anyway here goes :)

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tried the youtube button and all i got was a white screen :scratch:

[Audio Al]

Dam Dam Dam

Thats done it now , sat here listening to 8 tracks all afternoon :lol:

cant be bad though can it :cool:

[prestonchipfryer]

Takes me back to the 70s. I had a Hillman Imp with an 8-track player. Those were the days. :)

[Marco]

Hi Al,

Lol - looks great, in typical retro-stylee fashion, and I think (given the limitations of YouTube) sounds pretty fab! Certainly much better than MP3!! ;)

Marco.

[Rare Bird]

I have a 'CR-81D' but presently looking for a 'GXC-82D'

[shane]

8-Track? Really? C'mon guys! It was horrible then and it's even more horrible now. Not everything from the sixties and seventies was wonderful. Remember Tank Tops, Afros and beige Morris Marinas?

A brief resume of exactly how dreadful these things were in their basic principle of operation is needed for those who are unaware of the full awfulness. Tape was pulled from the centre of the single reel and fed back to the outside. This meant that the outside of the tape reel was travelling at the same speed as the inside, which is physically impossible, so the layers of tape on the reel had to slip over each other as they travelled from the outside of the reel to the inside. This in turn meant that the tape had to be lubricated, usually with graphite, which got all over everything. It also meant that once the lubrication wore off the tape it would jam. Which they did, all the time. The supposed superiority of 8-Track over cassette due to the higher tape speed was completely nullified by the lubricant getting on the head (note you could only have one head, so ply-back only) and the fact that the head had to clunk up and down four times on each play to get from one pair of tracks to the next, and so was seldom in proper alignment for more than about half an hour after the machine was taken out of it's box for the first time. The single reel was unpowered so all the transport load was taken by the capstan and pinch-roller. Wow? WOW!

Then there was the fact that only a few players offered fast forward, largely because doing so increased wear rates on the tape dramatically, and rewind was physically impossible, and then remember that the recorded material had to be divided into four equal-length bits which meant that tracks were either interrupted half-way through or punctuated with long silences.

The hifi industry heaved a sigh of relief when 8-Track went unlamented to it's grave. For pity's sake leave it there undisturbed.

Have a look at how it worked, and shudder:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8-track_tape

[Rare Bird]

Amazes me how people seem to be worried about what others listern to!

It's like this i buy 8 tracks cos I LIKE TO LISTERN to them, me, no one else

[Marco]

8-Track? Really? C'mon guys! It was horrible then and it's even more horrible now. Not everything from the sixties and seventies was wonderful. Remember Tank Tops, Afros and beige Morris Marinas?

A brief resume of exactly how dreadful these things were in their basic principle of operation is needed for those who are unaware of the full awfulness. Tape was pulled from the centre of the single reel and fed back to the outside. This meant that the outside of the tape reel was travelling at the same speed as the inside, which is physically impossible, so the layers of tape on the reel had to slip over each other as they travelled from the outside of the reel to the inside. This in turn meant that the tape had to be lubricated, usually with graphite, which got all over everything. It also meant that once the lubrication wore off the tape it would jam. Which they did, all the time. The supposed superiority of 8-Track over cassette due to the higher tape speed was completely nullified by the lubricant getting on the head (note you could only have one head, so ply-back only) and the fact that the head had to clunk up and down four times on each play to get from one pair of tracks to the next, and so was seldom in proper alignment for more than about half an hour after the machine was taken out of it's box for the first time. The single reel was unpowered so all the transport load was taken by the capstan and pinch-roller. Wow? WOW!

Then there was the fact that only a few players offered fast forward, largely because doing so increased wear rates on the tape dramatically, and rewind was physically impossible, and then remember that the recorded material had to be divided into four equal-length bits which meant that tracks were either interrupted half-way through or punctuated with long silences.


Sure... YET, despite all that, I thought that (Sylistics aside) the music on Al's YouTube video sounded pretty good! ;)

I rather like the warm and organic sound of 8-track :)

Perfect it isn't, but then neither is much of today's cold and clinical sounding digital-derived music, such as MP3, and most of what spills out of your average iPod......

Marco.

[shane]

It's like this i buy 8 tracks cos I LIKE TO LISTEN to them, me, no one else

Absolutely, and I wouldn't have it any other way. It's just that having had to sell and subsequently repair the things for some years, they've left a deep wound on my engineering soul, so I emit an involuntary wail of despair every time I'm reminded. Enjoy the pleasure (while it lasts....) :)

[Beechwoods]

My CR81D sounds pretty good. As good as pre-recorded tape on a typical cassette deck at least.

And it records. I have 2 8-Tracks and both record. You could buy blanks for them back at the time as well.

The main problem with 8-tracks was that the foam behind the tape that the head would press the tape onto tends to disintegrate with time, but it's easily replaced (draught excluder works well!), and learning how to re-foam old carts is the trick to getting them to play back and sound good. Without the foam working properly azimuth and tension is all over the place, and your tapes will get chewed.

Plenty of sealed / NOS tapes on eBay as well :)

[Marco]

Peter Mew, from Abbey Road Studios, says:


"It worries me that people accept that's how it should be - it isn't. The quality is not as good as it was in the 1990s. In some ways a cassette was better than an MP3 - it contained more data."


Indeed, and 8-track tape is defo better than shitey, piss-poor, God-awful MP3!! :exactly:

Marco.

[shane]

I wouldn't argue with that.