Since that is a square belt, you actually can adjust the tape speed: Obviously not by the diameter of the belt, but the thickness: Thicker square belts will increase the tape speed. Thinner belts decrease the tape speed. I have a video coming up soon on 2 Newcomb cassette players with AC synchronous motors that I was able to get the tape speed within tolerance just by changing belt thickness. Not just a minute range, but overall 100-200Hz from thinnest to thickest. I have been able to successfully get the speed within less than 1% on several AC motor and DC mechanically governed tape decks with square belts

@vwestlife

3 ай бұрын

Thanks for the tip!

@crazywarp36

3 ай бұрын

Lol I wasn't expecting seeing you here

@curtchase3730

3 ай бұрын

I don't understand how the thickness of the belt can change speed. Only the inner surface of the belt contacts the motor pulley and capstan flywheel. Adding "height"/thickness to the belt only makes the belt rise up more. My only guess is that the thickness of a belt either adds or subtracts friction/stiffness which could either unload or loads more resistance to the motor with a net result of the motor RPM changing due to load? Most DC motors have a regulator circuit inside that tries to compensate for voltage/load changes to keep RPM to spec. The better ones sometimes have a speed adjustment inside. I've played with those before. As for that shaded pole phonograph motor, not much can be done except to change diameter of either the flywheel or drive pulley on motor or capstan diameter IMO.

@spatsbear

3 ай бұрын

@@curtchase3730 The pulleys on square belts are conical shaped on each side from the center. The belt makes complete contact on both sides. For larger belts, the belt speed will be determined by where the outer part of the belt rides on that pulley. The small pulley on the motor will have the greatest impact. It does not affect the actual speed or load of the motor itself. Think of how a CVT works in a car.

@Neutron66

3 ай бұрын

@@spatsbear Totally agree, however it should be noted that these shaded pole or unipole motors are not truly synchronous. They have a 'slip ' aspect to them which is produced as a result of phase shift angle between the mains frequency and the artificial phase produced by the unicoil or laminete shading. Some motors allow this angle to be mechanically adjusted to alter the speed. Sorry about the science lesson :)

That feature is fantastic - I wish all players had that facility as standard. It solved two issues : 1. It acknowledged the limitation of the format and 2. solved that limitation, disguised as a 'feature'. A great idea that would have perhaps limited the bad reviews that 8-track often received.

"REALISTIC": The RadioShack brand I had to love in secret.

@ChrisB...

3 ай бұрын

When I was born my dad had a Realistic 8 Track with awesome lighted VU meters and a Marantz tuner. It was one of my first and best memories, got me interested in recording and music very early on in life.

@denniseldridge2936

3 ай бұрын

The audio brand that dare not speak its name. And I, too have given much secret love to RS. As a lad in the late 70s I'd pore over their catalogues like a young lad poring over... other types of magazines 🤣

@duckduckgoismuchbetter

3 ай бұрын

​@@denniseldridge2936I'm upvoting you for something I've never seen before in a KZread comment. The correct usage of the word "pore", instead of the usual incorrect usage of the word "pour" in this context, lol. That may be a first in all of KZread history. 😂

@the_kombinator

3 ай бұрын

I think I have some decent Realistic speakers somewhere, or my dad still does.

@davidbono9359

3 ай бұрын

Some of the Realistic equipment was actually quite decent. I understand a lot of it was OEM'ed for Radio Shack by other well-known manufacturers.

My parents bought the entire system in the early 70s... I still have the 8-track player, Gerard table, int reciever and speakers. Always liked the fine tune feature.

A very useful feature. An azimuth adjustment would be the ultimate addition to it as an archive deck.

Not sure why, but that makeshift fine-tuning string tensioner made me smile.

@igorszamaszow171

3 ай бұрын

A very 8trackish solution to the problem indeed. In hindsight the whole format has this makeshift, ad-hoc vibe to it.

My Quadraphonic car 8-Track had a fine tuning knob. it was even more important for quad tapes.

I can't really decide what I find more interesting in these audio player review type videos, the player its self being showcased or the casual flex of all the media that is used to test it.

@user-tk2hl4fz2l

3 ай бұрын

His collection is minuscule, it’s a flex 💪 of lifting a 5 lb dumbbell to many of us in retro communities who have a thousand times what he does in every category. Try watching real collectors before you say dumb stuff like this. Ive got thousands and thousands of 8 tracks and LPs, tens of thousands. Ive got a room of retro computers and consoles from 2600 to the PS5, the PET and apple II to 13 gen AMD ryzen. I have a 9000 foot game room with complete collections and partial collections off countless consoles still working. I have 2457 big BOX DOS games. I have record players, 8 track players, 70s, 80s and 90s tape and CD players. This guy has trinkets, when you have millions in spending money like I do a year it makes people like KEVIN Vwestlife look like china man living in a cave

@firenado4295

3 ай бұрын

@@user-tk2hl4fz2l I said casual. Any chump can brag about the tonns of stuff they bought of ebay but this guy just does a video and effortlessly pulls out obscure media every time with no mention of it like its normal to have these random things.

That "Fine Tune" feature is awesome... just tune for maximum treble output. Great 8 Tracks there, sir, Asia, Men At Work, Police... I have an Electrophonic receiver with the same green logo. Plastic woodgrain case. Dark plastic faceplate with illuminated green dial scale. Very basic... the only major feature is separate bass and treble controls. Likely about 5 watts / channel.

Actual music instead of plain old KZread music library 😎

@JoeOrber

3 ай бұрын

Well, good luck finding an 8-track tape with that YT content on it if you wanted one; not many people have an 8-track recorder lying around 😅

@ArthurAllen2

3 ай бұрын

@@JoeOrberI think Retro Grooves put out an album on 8-Track that has Creative Commons music on it. Still, I'm glad they played the Police album with "Spirits In the Material World" on one program and "Everything She Does" on another. Those songs are next to each other on the real album. I had to look up the 8-Track on Discogs and the track order is a mess! But they managed to make three out of four programs match up with the same timing, and they didn't have to cut any songs in half. I'm surprised anyone still cared by then.

@JoeOrber

3 ай бұрын

@@ArthurAllen2 yup, true dedication and love for music 😊

I find the creative engineering that went into making things like this to be far more interesting than the device I'm typing this comment on to be.

I wish every 8-Track player had an easily accessible fine tuning knob. I often have alignment problems across different brands of tapes. Learjet cartridges, particularly, lived on a different planet from everything else. The home recorded stuff, as you pointed out, is also troublesome a lot of the time. About the seized up tapes, I found that massaging them from the outside-in of the reel will typically free them up.

You know, Kevin, I've just come to realize that your videos have become my most anticipated videos from anyone. Your period correct observations and information is very interesting to watch. As an oldie I particularly liked this one. Thanks for the great videos.

That was really smart someone who has a brain built that 8track player!

@jammerDNA

3 ай бұрын

It’s surprising because Electrophonic wasn’t known for great quality.

Man you really out did yourself with the music samples this time. Just discovered a whole bunch of tracks that i hadn't heard before from the albums.

@MichalKobuszewski

3 ай бұрын

Coming from the late 80's somehow I've missed Asia entirely. The samples led me to discover them. What an amazing band - the harmonies, the instrument choices, the energetic heartfelt vocals - now I'm hooked up for sure!

What a great feature. Seriously wish that this 'fine tuning' was incorporated into more cassette decks. Only Yamaha's "play trim" knob come to mind. I have hundreds of type 2 blank cassettes that were recorded in numerous tape decks that only sounded great when played back in that same deck (half of which are dead). Awesome video!

The fine tune feature is really smooth. I can't help but be on the edge when you play all those copyrighted materials. It feels like playing with fire....

@LakeNipissing

3 ай бұрын

I believe there is a ten second limit.

@alphabeets

3 ай бұрын

He’s clearly purposefully tempting and taunting the KZread gods.

@vwestlife

3 ай бұрын

I did have to make a few edits to shorten the clips, to avoid copyright claims.

@rich_edwards79

3 ай бұрын

Unfortunately fair use doesn't seem to apply on KZread.

@JoeOrber

3 ай бұрын

@@rich_edwards79 exactly! I mean, if you’re monetizing your videos about audio equipment reviews and repairs, and you don’t play a whole song, it shouldn’t be flagged as a copyright violation; you’re not sampling it in another song you’re selling, and people that watch your videos are not doing so because of the songs there so that they could jam while in the shower 😂

Electrophonic was mostly known for their compact and console all-in-one systems. They didn't manufacture their own tape transports; those were manufactured by a (Japanese) third party and installed in Electrophonic cabinets or systems. The fact that they had over 60 8-track players listed probably refers to multiple complete systems, most of them using similar electronics in different styles of cabinet. Some just had a receiver and 8-track, some added a turntable, others a compact cassette deck, and some had all three souces. And of course there were a couple of standalone decks like this one. Quality was never high, although they did market a couple of half-decent standalone receivers under the Morse name.

7:08 That's the photo they chose, huh. He's staring into my soul.

@andreasu.3546

3 ай бұрын

Imagine what the others must have been like.

@denniseldridge2936

3 ай бұрын

Those eyes have seen the horrors of Crosley record players, decades in the future. On another note, I have that Heathkit receiver on the shelf next to his dead eyes.

@chadchambliss4949

3 ай бұрын

Looks like the guy from that sitcom Evening Shade.

I repaired a 8-track player recently for a friend of mine. I'm not sure why he really wanted it repaired, but they are really pretty simple to repair. The problem that I had, was finding a tape to play in it. I never was really into the format, so I didn't have any, but I finally found one after going around the neighborhood, lol.

When I was a kid, in our 1969 GMC truck that had a simple AM radio, an 8 track player had been installed that was attached under the center of the dash (or near the center). That 8-track player had an auto tune adjustment and I remember playing with it and having two things playing at once and being able to go from one tack to the next with it. You could tune it so the channel numbers would be off by 1 in comparison to the all-in-one Milovac system with an AM-FM radio, BSR record changer, and 8-track (which lacked that feature).

My favorite are the Panasonic.8 track players near the end of their life. Not because they were pretty but shockingly. Panasonic was the only company that decided to finally put a fiberglass belt on their player, and most of those players are still working to this day on their original belt.

Yay! Nice to see 8-Track get some love. Thank you for sharing,

Between this and the previous video of the combo cassette/8track loading mechanism, I think you have a talent for finding innovative designs that are hidden in unassuming places! Men at Work must have been near end of the 8 track run. I had the cassette as a kid, didn't even know about 8 tracks, and would have hated not being able to rewind and play "Land Down Under" repeatedly!

Who can it be now? Knocking at my door? Oh, it's VWestlife with a new video.

"Ghost in the Machine' by The Police was released in Oct. 1981 / "Asia" by Asia in March 1982 / "Business as Usual" by Men at Work in Nov. 1981... last of the 8 Track releases for the mass public... 8 Tracks could be ordered via mail order music clubs until approx. 1987... the last major label release that included an 8 track version was in 1988... now they are occasional "novelties" put out by record labels...

@joshuamartindale868

3 ай бұрын

The last Major label 8 track release was Fleetwood Mac Greatest Hits in 1988

This is perfect for digitizing cartridges to get the best out of each one.

I think that DIN connector was a retrofit to make it compatible with a European receiver. You can see that the left and right wires going into the connector are separated, as though there once was 2 RCA connectors on the end of that cable.

@ericdunn8718

3 ай бұрын

You might actually be right, since I was looking on eBay here in the US and I found multiple other units of the same model all having standard RCA connectors, so maybe this was either their European version or a retrofit they sold to people who had stereo systems from Europe (which seems to have happened more than you would expect in the 70s), so rather than get rid of an old or incompatible stereo system they could get an 8-track player that had a DIN connector installed already. Just a theory on that one though.

I miss Radio Shack. Some greats 80s and 90s memories.

amazing album choices for the demo section

Actually a fairly decent sounding 8 track player, without the warbling pitch associated with the format, and certainly considering its age. Not even hissy.

Great video! That thing actually sounds pretty good. I got to try this format since I could never find any 8 track players in thrift stores, in fact I can hardly find anything good a thrift stores anymore.

@ericdunn8718

3 ай бұрын

Same here myself, all 8-track tapes if they have them but nothing to play them on, apart from this one antique store in my town that has this huge silver colored combined system, with a turntable on the middle, the controls for everything next to it, and the slot for the 8-track placed some distance away and matching the silver color so as to blend in easily with everything. I remember it was made by some company called Airline, and it looks like a sort of shrunken buffet or minibar with speakers at the bottom. Hell, you could fool your kids and say that was what toasters looked like in the 1970s with its design 😂. But, other than that, no luck on actual players for me in my area (when in doubt, ebay or online it out), and the tapes aren't much better, mostly in bad condition in general and either country or religious in particular.

I have a KMart model that I think is a rebadge (Or vice versa) of the model you have depicted here in the video. The fine tuning has such a great range I could get it to adjust to hear only channel 3 with no channel 4 sound while the player has the channel 4 light illuminated.

Probably the one time that Morse/Electrophonic did something brilliant. Their units were usually mechanically great, however they are electronically crude and primitive for their era. Given the the Electrophonic logo, I am guessing mid 1970s. Their receivers and 8 track players usually had a metal chassis, their electronics always seemed a bit Earl "Madman" Muntz to me. They also came with these "Air Suspension" speakers with faux horn tweeters and bass blockers rather than true crossovers to send high frequencies to the tweeters. Almost hilariously crude.

@rich_edwards79

3 ай бұрын

All true, but I did love their 'jukebox' style console units with the flashing 'colour organ' light panels. Great for those 70s house parties!

This is a great feature for an 8 Track deck! Sure you could get by with the standard design, but this can be really handy to have. Didn’t know that a “better” 8 Track mechanism exists. Great video!

I remember when I home recorded my own 8-track cartridge. I sourced music from a couple of CDs, piped into a Craig compact stereo from a Citizen personal CD player. The results were amazing, though I had no control over the recording level other than the volume control on the CD player.

@ 1:12 - I too, as I age, am prone to knocking myself out of alignment.

Last year, I bought a new in the box, Lear Jet 8 track portable, for about $400.00. It linked nice and the radio worked well. However, the player wouldn't play probably because of the belt, and I returned via eBay. Also, back in the early 70's friends had 8 track players and recorders, but I went with Cassettes, which while not too good then, improved and replaced the 8 Track systems. I still, like you have cassettes and Vinyl records, in addition to my 62 years of amateur and shortwave, now too various SDR receivers. 😊

I'll add that my old Electrophonic deck (same as yours) was purchased new in 1975 from Western Auto with a small Truetone (Midland) receiver and a BSR mini changer that ran too fast.

If all of them would have had this, would have been a big plus for the format. 8 tracks actually have a great sound when the head is in sync with the tape program. I still have a few 8 track recorders but I rarely use them. One is a Realistic with Dolby B that makes excellent recordings. I would like to have one with this fine tune adjustment. Cheers! Great Video! 🍻

6:02 - Back in December 2023, I re-watched the original "We Are The World" video, playing the game my mother and I played when it was first released: "Name the Singer." **sighs nostalgically** The adjustment of the head through the front panel is GENIUS. I wish more manufacturers had thought of that!

Of right to repair info, I was an independent repair shop. Electrophonic was the first company I was to be an authorized service station for at the request of a local eight track store. They sent me stacks! Of service manuals for free. Imagine a service manual for a cheap mechanical clock radio. Exploded views, parts list, schematics, electronic alignment data. As good as in later years my manuals from Yamaha, Kenwood, B&O and the like.

My uncle had an 8 track player in his 70's Chevy nova.

I wonder how they reproduced 8 track tapes at the factory. For that janmed cartridge, you'll need to open the shell & try to advance the position by hand until you find the switch splice & cut it. I would then unwind the tape from the spool platter edge onto something else & work my way to the center. Then I would loosely respool back in the opposite direction, making sure the tape had some looseness as I did so. Resplice and reassemble.

@Tom32211

3 ай бұрын

Actually, I'm thinking about the same 😅 We've all seen videos about "how it's made" Vinyl records, cassette tapes etc. Now is about the time to face the video about how factories were making 8 track cassette tapes 😂

@Bob-1802

3 ай бұрын

The tapes were recorded "separately" at high speed on special big recorder machines, all 8 tracks at the same time. Then cut and spooled on customer reels, and inserted in cartridges.

Neat feature, my grandmother had an old Zenith Consol with an 8-track player and recorder. That thing had a very serious cross talk problem to the point to where you turn to one speaker and you would hear several things at a time, and then you go to the right you would hear something completely different. Near the end of the time she had it the belt gave up on it as well. I liked that unit because for a time it was the only recorder I had access to and I remember making some homemade tapes as well.

If you didn't want to fiddle with the head alignment for that one tape that always played off-track (probably one recorded on my friend's Pioneer recorder) I would stick a match book under the cartridge for perfect playback.

Your videos bring me comfort. Thank you

I owned one of those Electrophonic decks from 1988 until about 1992 when I passed it on to a friend's aunt. These came with standard rca ends on the cable - that din connector was added by the previous owner. I bought the Realistic deck in the opening new in 1987 - still have it and still works fine.

I like the actual fine tuning control on the front panel! Even tho the 8 track tape speed a little fast,,,I,m used to hearing it at that speed,,,,as many of my standard compact stereo tape decks and portable cassette players,,,very much run at this speed,,,but are adjustable with the speed control inside the back of the motor,,,on on the circuit board connections to tape player motor,,,,as I had to adjust a fair few of them,,,as some were going a bit slow,,,or fast in tape playback speed. I've only got one 8 track recorder/player,,,with built-in am/fm stereo radio tuner,,,I've had in storage,,,which I've only used once,,,b4 moving house,,,4 years ago.

Nice i love 8 track player videos this one doesn't looks bad at all i love Monday now.

"The sleek dazzling veneer of the 1980's" -That Guy

I thoroughly enjoyed this video. I appreciate the effort.

Cool unit and a very impressive tape collection. 🙂

What a lovely video

excellent sample music. thanks for giving me this extra sense on the 8track machine,

Fun fact, if my memory serves me right, in american TV series step by step that aired on Czech Prima TV station around yr 2000 in one episode a kid character buys old Volkswagen Beetle with an 8track in it and because in our country we did not have historically 8tracks in our cars, and we started with compact cassettes instead, in Czech dub they translated the 8track as "kids player" 😅

Back in the time when I was a kid and dinosaurs roamed the interstates we used to wedge a book of matches under or over the 8 track to adjust the head alignment with the tape. Ah the good old days!!

you are completely right about usual 8 Track behavior. i must say though, overall these are durable players. my Lincoln Continental 8 Track still works to this day.

hope all is well V! that unit sounds so cool! surprisingly good for the age.

Ohh maan! I used to have that Asia and Men At Work 8-track as well as the Flash Gorden soundtrack by Queen. Also, no longer have neither the player nor the tapes, although I did get the Asia album on CD (I which I still have). Also do remember one of my uncles had an 8-track player in his truck and listening to Supertramp "Breakfast in America" on it. Been a long time since I last listened to an 8-track, and to be honest, don't really miss it. It was a format that was originally intended for mobile use, such as in cars/boats/and aircraft (after all, it was Lear that came up with the format). That was at the time before cassettes really became better for music recording and then became feasible for mobile use (the Sony Walkman anyone?).

@ArthurAllen2

3 ай бұрын

I wonder if someone could do a Kick Starter for a personal 8-Track player. It only needs to fit at the top of the cartridge and the whole thing wouldn't be much bigger than a Discman.

That’s fascinating. Amazing how big a part the head alignment played (although it shouldn’t really be surprising-it is 8 tracks after all). Bad pun: judging by one of the examples, alignment is Queen.

1969…driving around in my moms station wagon smoking doobies and listening to Crosby stills and Nash on the 8 track.

Well I had a lot of 8-track players as I was growing up in the 70's I even had a very fancy 8-track player by pioneer it was self loading and ejecting it was a very big unit but I never saw or even new of such an adjustment I was never a fan of 8-tracks cause of how some would tighten up and not play plus the sound never sounded as good as a record or cassette they were popular when in high school everybody had those portable units that were batt operated I had my unit also when in high school had a partime job in a record store after school the 8-track section was larger than the cassettes section but after the the end of the 70's cassettes became more popular I remember having a big casstte deck and 8-tracks fadding away wow thjis was something new I learned today about 8-tracks and I had them this was a very excellent vid you never disappoint !!!! thanks JRo

I had an 8 track player like the Electrophonic one you have. I replaced another player with it because there wasn't any way to adjust the head to work with all the commercially recorded tapes because the head alignment on their recorders varied. The commercially recorded 8 track tapes had the same problem with head alignment, making the head tuning adjustment worth a lot.

I'm European and I never seen any 8 track tape/player in person in my life!

@EastAngliaUK

3 ай бұрын

No only on vwestlife hear but normal tapes seem more better to use but longer RW & FF

@zsombor_99

3 ай бұрын

@@EastAngliaUK Yup, normal tapes are way better, especially considering cassettes are available anywhere in the world, but 8 track cartridges are not.

Oh, and for that one unplayable tape, maybe try sticking a hair dryer on it, as I've heard that may get the tape less seized up around the reel, especially since the plastic in 8-track tapes is really brittle at this age and the tape won't wanna move or cooperate much after being stuck in one position for who knows how many years. I've never personally used 8-track myself so this is just anecdotal evidence from the internet, but it does seem to mostly work from what I've read. It also serves a purpose if you need to get inside any tapes to replace pressure pads or add new metal splice points, as some of them used cheap plastic pegs to hold them closed, and again the whole plastic shell will likely have gone cold and brittle so if you try to do it without heating it up slightly beforehand the whole thing could shatter (again, secondhand information, but just from seeing 8-track tapes in stores and picking them up I can tell many of them are in bad shape physically, to the point one specific one I remember it felt like the whole tape reel on the inside would fall out the front if I tipped it slightly, because I could feel the center of gravity on the tape shift a lot when I was handing it to see what it said, more than what I assume is normal from what it felt like with the others in the box).

Now that is a cool 8 track player 😎👍

I've always liked Morse/Electrophonic. They came out with some pretty cool systems. I just fixed one for my daughter that is a bar with a AM/FM, 8 track and turntable.

My opinion that's one of the best 8-track players ever made

I wonder why nobody ever made an 8track mechanism using a fixed 8 track playback head, so you can just switch between programs electronically. Yes, the head would be more expensive, but you could eliminate the solenoid and need for heavy duty construction to deal with all of the clunky head moving.

@nickwallette6201

3 ай бұрын

I was wondering that too. Were they THAT hard to manufacture, that all the mechanical nonsense would be cheaper?

@gotham61

3 ай бұрын

@@nickwallette6201Fostex made 8 track reel to reel machines that used 1/4 inch tape, so the head is definitely doable.

interesting player. head alignment was the least of the home-recorded Queen tape's problems. THere was no bass and the speed was way off. It was presumably recorded from a record player with a ceramic cartridge and it just goes to show how most people won't notice huge differences in speed when they listen to music.

@igorszamaszow171

3 ай бұрын

That Queen tape sounded like 3-4 generations copy off the original LP to me. As for the record player playing too fast, if it's your only one and it's consistently fast, how would you notice without direct comparisons with an original source?

I forgot about 'Stereo Review' - I had a subscription for years!

You should _STRONGLY_ consider incorporating a muppet into your act. It has done wonders for Techmoan.

You can add tape around the capstan pulley to slow the speed. Also a reason these things have lasted so long is they (like most any manufacturer) reused off the shelf components, which back then were pinball machine grade solenoids and mechanical items. Tough to beat.

This should have been a standard feature on Stereo 8 players! It's just cool!

Just in case anyone is interested.. a friends farther worked and designed audio equipment for a large UK firm that often used AC synchronous motors and it was desired from research (according to him) that it sounded less disagreeable to the ear if pitched a tiny bit fast so had the margin of error a bit on the faster side.. I also have an 8 track player with a fine tune control which is very handy playing back some 8 track tapes however I have an Akai machine (reel to reel, 8 track and cassette all in one) and it never appears to play anything misaligned, even the tapes I have had to adjust with the fine tuning on the other machine play just fine on the Akai, very strange.. I have put it down to the fact perhaps the head gap on the Akai is a bit tighter? a higher spec perhaps so more room for alignment error? something like that perhaps. No idea im only guessing....

OMG that was great. Great music. I found an 8-track player at a yard sale when I was a kid. I wish I still had it. But, it died and I chucked it. The reason I wish I still had it. It had 2 speeds on it for play back. Don't know why. Plus all the other features like auto eject. Fast forward. Recording. I'm surprised it didn't have fine tune adjustment though. Now I got 2 nice 8- track players. Plus a few boxes of rock n roll 8-tracks. Once in a while I'll pull them out and fix another one. Replace the felt pad and such. One final note is my Dad didn't even realize you could record on them.

@GothGuy885

3 ай бұрын

I had an 8 track that was my dad's, and then he gave it to me as a teen. it had a FF button and would record.I set it up outside with a Mic to record and fast forward, and smashed a glass jar on the sidewalk. when played back at normal speed, you could hear the initial smash, and then each piece of glass falling back to the ground. wish I had made of copy of that to reel to reel back then, and then when I got a computer,could have transferred it to digital so I could post it to you tube. it sounded amazing actually.

Invented by Learjet magnate Bill Lear!

I still have a (I bought new) circa 1990 Yamaha Component Tape Deck (in a closet) that has a head adjustment knob on the front. Made it MUCH easier to get really high quality music recordings off vinyl (or another source) on quality cassettes. Called play trim maybe? Wish it was an older silver style with analog level meters.. but it's boring black with digital. Getting the best head alignment even with cheap boomboxes made a big different in play and recording quality (especially if using Dolby C- which was made for tape decks imo- to get rid of the tape hiss for clearer highs).

Oof - representing my homeland music there with Men At Work. I agree. Head alignment is critical in many areas of life.

I have this model! I got it free from a tag sale across the street from where I grew up.

For machines like this that run too fast and motor speed is non-adjustable, a trick I used to do is wrap the periphery of the flywheel with a layer of tape. This effectively increases the motor/flywheel speed reduction thus slowing the tape speed. It may take a few tries with different thicknesses of tape, or additional layers, but this trick has worked for me every time. For machines that run too slow the same thing _can_ be done to the motor pulley to bring the speed up but should only be tried after trying out a new belt. If that is ineffective then tape can be wrapped around the motor pulley. However, complications arise because of the small diameter and the fact that the pulley is barrel-shaped (purposely to keep the belt centered), but it can be done.

Never seen an 8 track player like that before !!

I wonder if they had this on the car stereo models too? seems like a great little unit.

This is what 8-track DJ's used to use to make mixes to "bring down the house".

8 track has too many calibration issues on most players, it’s good that there’s a fine calibration tuner on that player, let’s all chant at the end of the video!

@nickwallette6201

3 ай бұрын

Oh just imagine how bad it would've been if the deck could record, and everyone was eyeballing the track alignment...

@Markimark151

3 ай бұрын

@@nickwallette6201 8 track was never really suited for recording. That’s why audio cassettes were more popular, since they have two different sides. 8 track was mostly for playback purposes!

For a while, I dabled with 8 tracks. Players and tapes themselves. This probably is not news to an inside/out guy,but if you like just playing with them,be aware that alot of 8 tracks tapes themselves have a composite rubber/cork drive wheel that i found breaks down and clogs zhe heck out of your player. A cool video ❤

That looks very cool

Morse, Electrophonic and Garrard were big in dept. stores in the early 70's

those are some cool 8 track players...by the way nice selection with men at work and the police..early mj at the end ...nice...

K-tel records presents. I rocked a double 8track in my all in one receiver, turntable tape deck in the 80's. I could record to 8track, Oh yea, i'm cool.

4/8 track possibly the most agricultural prehistoric monstrosity ever.😂 I cried when you played Men At Work oh the humanity 😢

Back in the late 80s, I got one of those Realistic tape decks for free, but didn't have any tapes. A year or two later, I saw what looked like a tape storage box on top of someone's trash can on trash day. I opened it up and sure enough, that was what it was, but for 8 track carts and had some carts in there, I took it home to play, but it sounded like crap. Wow and flutter and a bit dull. I ended up selling the deck and tapes at a garage sale. I wonder if I could have adjusted it to fix those problems.

This would have been a perfect video if it was release in 1971.

I remember taking a paper matchbook and wedging into the top or bottom of the tape to get certain tapes to work properly. I still have some 4 track cartridges which had only 2 program selections, those had less bleed over of the second program. Both Craig and Pioneer made a 4x4 player that played 4 track or 8 track cartridges. Anybody remember those? Muntz was pushing the 2 program format, but like the VHS vs. Beta video format, the 8 track won.

Nice little unit. I really love the fact that the head in housed in a metal bracket. I used to have a higher end Realistic where it was plastic. Not sure how it snapped, but even gluing it together didn't help at all.

And a very good video!

Cool! I just ordered my Lafayette RK-840A 8-track recorder from eBay over the weekend, because one of the people gave me plenty of 8-track tapes since my last one. I used to have my Panasonic RS-803US and it worked fine, but the motor just died. So I have to replace it with a much better 8-track recorder.

NAIM still uses DIN connectors. NAIM is a British HiFi & High End manufacturer

Handy that they mark the slot where the Cartridge goes, in case you can't find it at first glance.