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Posted by lostcub2000 on 07/27/06 11:59
Well... All I said was, "P.S. Cassette killed the 8-Track", and was being
facetious. but...the writer in me feels a commentary coming on. Oops, see
what you guys done now!
Talking about 8-track believe it or not, the same technology is still in use
today, by radio stations, and before the advent of satellite radio, many
businesses used a much larger version of it for background music, some even
still do to this day.
Saying all that, one must take into consideration what the 8-tack was
originally designed for, before dismissing it as a silly format. It was
designed for continues playback, and was not intended for use as a general
purpose recording medium, such as reel to reel or cassette. It was meant to
be an alternative for the phonograph record, with the advantage, you didn't
have to "flip" it over, and to play it over and over again without getting
up. This was during the days before the "remote control" -- So, who was the
official channel changer in your family? I was the official horizontal
re-setter, when the picture flopped over, often in the climax of suspense
:-) --
The Advantages vs. The Dis
Advantages:
3 times the speed of same size stereo track of Philip cassette, this gives
a better frequency response and higher S/N ratio.
Has higher stereo separation since left and right channels were not
adjacent.
Due to the lubricated back, it has slightly less "print through". --
Magnetic field "prints" a faint copy of itself onto overlaying tape. (ever
hear a faint start of the song before the song starts?)--
Tapes are far less likely to be eaten by hungry machines! Tape when pulled
from the center, is forced wind to the outer part of reel.
Disadvantages:
No rewind.
Mechanical head changing system tends to get miss aligned after cleaning
and/or other factors. -- electronic head system was only available on units
that recorded, which is similar to the head system on that of an auto
reversing cassette deck.--
Pop or blanking for a second, when recording during the track change.
Extremely hard to fix if tape gets broken or jammed. It takes lots of
patience and steady hands to keep tape for spiraling off the reel when
opening. Re feeding is just as much of a bitch.
Could not be played backward to listen to "Queens -- Another one bites the
Dust".
The biggest disadvantage of the 8-track (domestic version) was in the drive
system itself. Unlike the carts used in radio stations,and the commercial
version of the 8-track, the roller was in the cartridge, and not in the
machine itself. These endless loop type tape systems uses graphite on the
back of the tape, to keep it flowing smoothly. This lubricant will rub off
onto the roller, causing it to loose traction, causing wow and flutter
distortion. The roller should never be cleaned as any solvent that gets on
the back of the tape will make the tape get stuck, and useless.
These roller were often made cheaply too, to keep the cost down, and often
ware down fast too. Also another MAJOR problem is, many of the ones made in
the early 1970s were made of natural latex, and over time they went "googy".
CHECK ROLLER BEFORE INSERTING AN 8-TRACK IN A PLAYER! Press down on it with
you finger, if it "smushes" DO NOT INSERT! It will ruin your player, and
players are hard to find these days. Cleaning is next to impossible, as it
will be like someone putting tar all over the drive system.
In my opinion, on which is better that depends, as both have ups and downs.
8-track does have -- with a good player -- the best audio quality. And with
high bias formulas combined with Dolby B noise reduction, it was fantastic.
-- Many late albums were made using them --. The response was so wide that
it supported quadraphonic sound. True 4 separate channels, that multiplex
the front and back channels with a sub carrier similar to composite stereo
used in FM stereo and analog TV stereo broadcasting, not a simple L-R
"Dolby" like surround. A Cassette doesn't have the response to do this, at
best I've seen only 22Khz at the highest range and, not very many cassette
decks even reach the highest end of normal human hearing. Quadraphonic
needs at least 15Hz to 38Khz. Neither does the standard CD, however I don't
know why they don't release the old 70's albums in Dolby Digital 5.1 in an
AC3 format.
The Cassette on the other hand is smaller and can fit inside your pocket,
with the same technology use in the 8-track such as noise reduction and
better magnetic formulas made the cassette --which IS older than the
8-track-- come to life, and brought it into the audiophile zone, from a
simple dictation device back in the 1960s. Ask someone back in the early
70s if they would buy an album on a cassette, and they'd probably give you a
wired look!
The only main problem I have with cassette is not the cassette itself, but
how the recording industry makes and sell poor quality albums on cassettes,
and always has. The very fact that one can take a modest cassette deck and
record a CD on it, and come out with a tape that is far greater than the
ones they sell, is down right a rip off. There is NO excuse for this! And
then turn around and try to keep people from copying their records and CD on
to cassette to play in their car...Well. Come on, I think more people would
have gone out to bought a cassette if it was a good quality recording, but
they were not. Most of the time they are saturated, the Dolby level was
encoded wrong, and the wow and flutters were and are still to this day,
unacceptable by most people with an ear for music.
Okay, I step down from the soap box. Now if I were to pick the best format,
well I have to pick... Well, THE PHONOGRAPH RECORD! There really isn't any
other domestic analog device that could beat it. Its response is wide enough
to hold not just Quadraphonic sound, but VIDEO! Yep, there were video
records at one time, where movies could be bought, but the styli was hard to
find, and Laser Disk killed it, but Laser Disk killed itself, by making the
medium more than 2 times the price of VHS. Something DVD kept in mind.
Blu-ray should not be too much more than DVD, hopefully, and that's what
started this silly thread in the first place.
Lostcub
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