> Well, up until the very late 70s, 8-tracks had a definite audio
> advantage over cassettes (which I first saw in a car in Germany
> in 1976). It wasn't until the advent of chrome tape and Dolby
> that cassettes were able to overcome the 8-track's 3-3/4 ips
> tape speed. And commercially made cassette tapes usually had
> absolutely wretched sound from being duplicated on high-speed
> bin systems.
Not to mention the fact that cassettes of the day were frequently eaten
by the deck....
> I guess as someone who came of age in the 8-track era, I don't
> have any negative associations with them. They sure sounded
> better than the monaural FM converter a friend had in his Mustang,
> which fed the signal back through the AM tuner a la home VCRs!
The real negatives vs. cassettes was their size, and the situation where
a song was divided across two tracks: fade out - click - fade in.
Anyone who wants more info on 8-Tracks:
http://www.8trackheaven.com/
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