On Feb 21, 8:58 pm, Salty wrote:
duty-honor-country wrote:
most people in the late-1970's still had 8-track players in their cars
and homes as well
Most People? Absolute garbage. By the early seventies car cassette and
cassette radio combination players were common, not eight tracks. If you
wanted to purchase a new car with an eight track you had to order it
specifically. It wasn't a standard option as there was already enormous
difficulty in finding new release songs on eight track. You had to "burn
your own" for modern music.
you either are too young to know better, or too old to remember
clearly
Neither.
My very first new car (aged seventeen - graduation present) had an eight
track, all subsequent cars had radio/cassette players. I was unhappy
about the limitations of the eight track and replaced it with a car
cassette player in 1970. It was a second hand Panasonic player taken
from a three year old wreck. I was quite pleased with it.
My last eight track was a combination unit built into an Akai reel to
reel recorder. It didn't see much use. I still have it.
Regards
Salty
domestic and foreign car mfrs. put 8-track decks in cars as factory
equipment and dealer installed options, well into the early 1980's
I am not saying that they didn't. I am saying that they were not a
*standard* option. They had been superseded by Radio/Cassettes and they
had to be ordered/requested. By the early eighties they were nearly
impossible to find.
They had an appeal to people who had invested money and time into
collecting eight track music. Anyone who had no existing collection (and
for many who had) a cassette offered more convenience and flexibility,
particularly once a few advancements in head technology, Dolby etc,.
made the smaller format outperform the larger older style heads,
you're pretty sharp on tax law, but on the 8-track history is not
accurate
It is *absolutely* accurate.
I have a (legal) music collection that exceeds three thousand albums. I
have strong associations with two prominent '70's rock groups, and a
lifelong enthusiasm and appreciation for music. I know what was
available, I know what was popular (the area where you seem to be lost)
and I know what was not.
at our local high school here during 1975-80, nearly ALL the kids
drove cars with 8-track decks in them- cassette was considered
somewhat of a joke-
Our experiences differ. In my college days, a person with an eight track
in a late seventies car was considered old fashioned or blue
collar/trailer trash. Not sure why. Maybe because they were more common
in Pickups and Muscle cars. Maybe because as the supply of new eight
track albums dwindled, the few readily available seemed to focus on R&B,
country/bluegrass and old Rock&Roll, not contemporary music. Pickups and
Muscle cars certainly were around, but they weren't the "norm". Like it
or not, the norm with regard to music in the seventies was disco. Try to
find concurrent popular label disco releases on eight track during the
seventies. It was pretty much Cassette and Vinyl LP. Not many cartridges
in the music stores.
8-tracks still outsold cassettes by a far margin until 1983
Not so, not even close. By 1983 CDs were in play, cassettes were
approaching Vinyl sales and eight tracks were museum pieces. They had
stopped making the players several years earlier. There were no new
model/technology releases with players after 1975, and by that time they
were all Asian manufacture. Between 1979 and 1983 all of the major
labels had officially declared eight track formats no longer supported.
They had been dying for years, they didn't stop supporting them because
they were popular, they stopped supporting them because they were more
expensive, less reliable and not as popular as cassettes.
Regards
Salty- Hide quoted text -
- Show quoted text -
dude, with all due respect, 8-track killed cassettes all through the
1970's for the average teenage rock fan- no one bought a cassette
deck, they appeared to be cheap and inferior-
it wasn't until the 1980's that cassette really took off and 8-track
subsided
when people started buying metal and chrome cassette tapes, and making
their own recordings for in the car during the early 1980's, that's
when 8-track was done
8-track made a huge comeback on the internet and Ebay, and far
outvalues a cassette now- an 8-track tape sold for $4500 on Ebay last
year- the players are also selling for more than a new cassette deck
or CD/DVD player sell for- where have you been ?
see it here
http://electronics.search-completed....4999QQsbrsrtZd