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Cartridge alignment tapes STILL available
After consulting with Magnetic Reference Laboratory, I did find that
broadcast alignment cartridges are still in their catalog and readily available. However, this is "Fidelipac" (4 track compatable) format, not 8 track. They currently offer the ITC carts, same as the old ScotchPaks, but you'd still have to transfer the spool into an 8 track Scotch cart to make it run on 8 track machines. 3.75 IPS is a non-standard speed for broadcast carts, 7.5 being the standard for decades, but they do indeed offer these, as well as 15 IPS. EQ is NAB open reel, with 3180/50 µS equalization, but there are options for IEC cart, IEC open reel and still other manufacturer-specific EQs, such as Otari. I believe that 8 track carts were NAB 3180/50, but I'm not entirely sure. The NAB standard for cartridge EQ were first released in 1975, but there's no supporting documentation that this is what consumer 8 tracks were EQ'd at, and no one at MRL knows for sure. Anyone have a clue here? These are available in both full track, the normal alignment tape format, and "program/cue track," used with Spotmasters and other broadcast cart machines using various cue frequencies. Fringing compensation is also available, which is desirable doing freq runs on a multi-track machine. Reference fluxivity, however, isn't per the 8 track standard of 185 nWb/M, and the closest they offer is 200, which is .7 dB above 185...NOT a problem. You could also opt for 160, the same standard as early cassettes, which would show up aroun 2.3 dB below 0 VU. These are all offered on lubricated backing cart tape stock, so they should live awhile. Now, as to which existing 8 track carts will accept an ITC spool, I'm not sure yet. One major problem of 8 track as a format in general was the lack of any realistic standards at all. Philips knew this when they set about converting their "dictaphone tape" format for music, and laid out iron clad physical standards for anyone using their cassette format under license. Hence, cassette was a far less problematic format to deal with than 8 track. dB |
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