Quote:
Originally Posted by ownedbycats
They were before my time, but 8-tracks use magnetic tape, which do degrade and lose magnetization after a while, especially if they weren't stored right. I think that 8-tracks also had a reputation for being notoriously unreliable. But between those, I wouldn't be surprised if they had failed over the years.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JSWolf
My Dad did have an 8-track tape player in the car and I had an 8-track tape player. I never once had a problem with any of the tapes. But I don't know how good they would be now if I still had them.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by j.p.s
I had friends with 8-tracks. Track changing in the middle of songs was really annoying.
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Jon, you may have been the only person in the world who did not have problems with 8 Tracks. They were notorious for the following problems: 1) Tape Drag 2) Tape Player Eating tape 3) hearing parts of two songs at the same time and 4) The splice coming apart. Tape drag was caused by the tape getting too tight and slowing down. You could open the case and pull the tape out and rewind it. Sometimes it worked and sometimes you were out of luck. If the head got dirty, it could grab the tape and pull out the tape. Sometimes you could repair also, but sometimes it would stretch or break the tape. If the tape head or tape was out of alignment you would here parts of two songs. And a couple of times I had the splice come apart. 8 Tracks were popular, in spite of the inherent problems, because cassette tapes were very thin, and the sound quality was really terrible. Once the quality of cassettes improved eight track died a lonely and sad death.
Apache