#8 TRACK TAPE PLUS#

A substantial 65,000 of the players were installed in the first year alone, all manufactured by the Motorola Corporation. Arguably even more importantly, Ford allowed their retail network to retrofit the system at dealerships nationwide, creating an aspirational demand for the 8-track. The following year, Ford rolled out the 8-track as an option right across its range of vehicles, making it the must-have accessory for new car buyers. Lear had a long association with the car manufacturer, going back to the 30s when he had been party to the founding of Motorola, which provided in-car entertainment systems for Ford. Having developed the new system, Bill LearвЂ™s next move was to persuade the management at Ford US to factory fit his 8-track player to the 1966 range of Mustangs, Thunderbirds and Lincolns, introduced in September of 1965. There are even unique versions of songs on some 8-tracks, including an additional piano solo on Lou ReedвЂ™s Berlin and an extra guitar break on Pink FloydвЂ™s Animals. Longer tracks were frequently split into two parts, shorter songs repeated or long passages of silence inserted into the running order.

However, with most music designed to be listened to over two sides of an LP, the Stereo 8 cartridges often had to resort to tinkering with running orders and even dividing songs to make them fit the four-programme format.

#8 TRACK TAPE PLUS#

On the plus side, by using a short length of conductive foil at the splice joint on the tape, the Stereo 8 could switch between tracks automatically, a real benefit for in-car entertainment systems. The trade-off for this greater capacity inside a standard cartridge was a slight loss of sound quality and an increase in background noise from the narrower tape width. Kraus engineered the 8-track system, reducing the complexity and addressing reliability issues by incorporating a more efficient mechanism into the cartridge itself.Д«randed the Stereo 8 system, it meant that eight tracks could be recorded, usually in four programmes of two tracks each. However, Lear was unimpressed with the build quality and asked one of his team, Richard Kraus, to develop a more robust system. Having gained some success in his home state, Muntz expanded his operation, striking a deal with US entrepreneur Bill Lear to have his system fitted into his Learjets. This was seized upon by businessman Earl Muntz of Los Angeles, California, who introduced his Stereo- Pak 4-track CARtridge system, using licensed music from the major record companies. However, cartridges had one major benefit by being both compact and portable, meaning there was potential within the burgeoning post-war US automobile market. And when compared to the popular reel-to-reel systems of the day, quality and fidelity were found wanting. Though 4-track systems were first to be developed, their wider adoption was hampered by numerous reliability problems that stopped the platform from really making any headway with music fans. Cartridge systems were developed in the 50s but really came to prominence during the following decade.

In this scenario, we would refurbish your tapes and list them in our catalog (or via Ebay auctions) and split the proceeds in some agreed fashion.Long before compact cassettes became popular, the mass-market alternatives to vinyl in the late 50s and 60s were 4-track and 8-track cartridge systems. If you feel that you have a particularly valuable collection, but donвЂ™t want to do the work of servicing the tapes and selling them yourself, selling them on a consignment basis with us is a possibility. Contact us using the option in the right sidebar, and youвЂ™ll be able to send the photo(s) after we reply to your message. This will help us read the titles and somewhat assess the physical condition of your tapes. The best way to communicate your collection is by taking a photo (or photos) of your tapes stacked like the picture above. We do not have enough luck selling country western tapes, big bands, easy listening, and composition tapes, although we do acquire these tapes when they are a smaller part of larger collections. However, we are mostly interested in rock n roll bands, metal, new wave, and alternative 1980s bands. We buy 8-track tapes particularly large collections.

8 track tape