Super 8 Tracks?

Post by **super8man** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 4:05 am

Perhaps Reflex can chime in on this one...do you ever get the feeling super 8 is about as respected as 8 track tapes? A new webpage to ponder the theory of the endless loop...

http://home.pacbell.net/mnyberg/super8mm/super8_42.html

Very very scary...click if you dare...

Cheers,
Mike

Post by **reflex** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 5:41 am

Gosh, Mike. That is quite an, um, interesting collection of music.

I'm not sure I agree that Super 8 is the photographic equivalent of 8-Track. It enjoyed massive popularity in the early 1970s, and was definitely the leader of the pack throughout most of the world. On the other hand, very few people ever took 8-Tracks seriously.

I'd be inclined to vote for Technicolor's Magi-Cartridge format as the film format most likely to be confused with 8-Track tape....

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 0024331755

Post by **James E** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 6:09 am

Hey Mike, I've got a case of Beatles 8 tracks. I was going to eBay them all. Interested? I think I have a few others as well. I take a look. I've never played them. They were a found treasure. I just kept them for the heck of it.
Cheers,

Post by **Jim Carlile** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 6:51 am

reflex wrote:On the other hand, very few people ever took 8-Tracks seriously.

I'd be inclined to vote for Technicolor's Magi-Cartridge format as the film format most likely to be confused with 8-Track tape....

No way! You must be young. 8-Tracks were the boss!! Where you been?

Super 8 man you've got nothing but home units and wierd portables. Nobody had those-- 8 tracks were for the car! Who ever had them at home? Everybody had them on the road...

From the late 60's to the late 70's 8-tracks were where it was at...nobody used cassettes in car stereos until later when the players became more stable--

About those Beatles 8 tracks-- they are worth a fortune. Hang on to them.

Post by **VideoFred** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 8:08 am

super8man wrote: Very very scary...click if you dare...

Awesome Mike!

I have had an 8 track in my car myself, in the 70's.
Endless repeating of the same songs...

In my case: Green Onions from Booker-T.
Of cource I have it on CD now, and I still love the album.

If I recall well, you could swith between tracks with a button. Click clack

Fred.

Post by **S8 Booster** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 8:26 am

some time in the 70s i bought a used 8T car player with a 1 (never got more than 1 - i dont think new releases were avail on 8T here) SchteppenWolf cassette in it and since i had 2 quite fab domestic speakers in the back of me car the sound was fab.
actually i think the 8 had a sound quality edge over the by then dominating Phillips cassette system but here the availability of 8T cassettes were limited so i sold it to a friend who wanted for his Ford Fairlane - coming home so to say.

anyway, i liked the 8T both for the "system" and sound quality - half PRO ;)

shoot......

Post by **James E** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 8:27 am

Jim Carlile wrote:
reflex wrote:On the other hand, very few people ever took 8-Tracks seriously.

About those Beatles 8 tracks-- they are worth a fortune. Hang on to them.

Humm, really? Anybody want them? Offer me something. If there's someone here who will really appriciate them I'd rather they go on here than E-hell. What do you think they're really worth? I'll just end up spending the money on that other 8 thing.....hehehe. More film or more cameras!
Cheers,

Post by **Angus** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 8:59 am

8-tracks were "the boss" in north America but they never conquered the world like super 8 did. You hardly ever saw them in Europe. Not sure about Japan.

When I lived in the states for a while in the late 90's my wife had a stereo with an 8-track player in it and I found a few Genesis cartridges at a thrift store. Man, they cut Supper's Ready into two to fit it on the cart :roll:

Post by **Blue Audio Visual** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 9:24 am

Angus wrote:8-tracks were "the boss" in north America but they never conquered the world like super 8 did. You hardly ever saw them in Europe.

You frequently see both players (and they're not 110v) and cartridges in car boot sales and Hi-Fi fairs in the UK, so they must have shifted a fair few units. I remember the carts being on sale in the 70s but it was only ever pretty mainstream offerings - having said that I was only a child at the time so I might be mis-remembering or reconstructing my memories at least. I'm sure WH Smiths used to stock a pretty extensive range.

A friend of mine recently installed one in his 70s car - he is afflicted with chronic retromania.

Steve Albini's 80s band Big Black had a pic of the same Panasonic that's in Mike's avatar on the cover of their album 'The Rich Man's Eight Track Tape'.

Post by **Angus** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 1:15 pm

I was only a kid as well but I do not recall seeing one until I found Tandy (Radio Shack) offered players and recorders in their catalogue. I asked around and was told they were tapes for cars, mostly in America. I've always taken a keen interest in recording technology (hence wanting the Japanese "phonograph") and I can hand on heart say I never saw an 8 track player in a car in the 70's...nor did my local record emporium stock cartridges (I have been a customer since I was four years old...1977)...

Yes they existed in the UK but they weren't any where as near as common as they were in the states where they really did hit the big time.

Post by **VideoFred** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 1:31 pm

Angus wrote:
Yes they existed in the UK but they weren't any where as near as common as they were in the states where they really did hit the big time.

The same here in Belgium. Cassette was the rule here, but 8-track was.. special. 8-track was for car use only...

Fred.

Post by **fogo** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 2:00 pm

Im from the UK and Ive got a very distinct memory of a single male friend of my dads showing up at the house in the early 1970s with a new orange coloured Lotus Europa....fitted with an 8-Track...wow.. I can remember standing there while the guy showed off the player with the doors open...
I was a kid at the time, but clearly remember that this was something special...as indeed it was, at a time when most cars supplied in the UK did not even have a radio fitted as standard equipment...

http://www.lotus-europa2.com/siteview.a ... orange.jpg

No its not an 8-track but if you dont know what a Europa looks like, check it out...

ade

Post by **timdrage** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 3:18 pm

I managed to find two 8-track cart recorders, one of them quadraphonic!! Planning to make some super-obscure 8-track noise releases in ridiculously limited editions but it's gonna be labor intensive getting everything working well enough.

Post by **fogo** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 4:00 pm

Weird crosslink there Tim, i know Colin from ExperimentalistsAnonymous very well...his Parallel Universe is amazingly cool! Cool site, keep up the work,

ade

Post by **super8man** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 8:35 pm

Jim Carlile wrote: Super 8 man you've got nothing but home units and wierd portables. Nobody had those-- 8 tracks were for the car! Who ever had them at home? Everybody had them on the road...

From the late 60's to the late 70's 8-tracks were where it was at...nobody used cassettes in car stereos until later when the players became more stable--

About those Beatles 8 tracks-- they are worth a fortune. Hang on to them.

Um yeah, OK, whatever.

and James E, don't bank your retirement on that advice on your tapes:

http://cgi.ebay.com/SET-OF-12-BEATLES-8 ... dZViewItem

and

http://cgi.ebay.com/Lot-of-8-Track-Tape ... dZViewItem

and

http://cgi.ebay.com/Beatles-8-Track-Tap ... dZViewItem

Seriously.

And remember, the plural of anecdote is not evidence...

Oh and yes, 8-tracks in the car were very normal and natural - had one in an old mustang back in the day...but decent fidelity could be had from home units...which were more common than reel to reel units but not as common as an FM receiver...

More appropriately, all the recording formats developed more from the consumers' desire to bootleg things than anything else - 8 track recorders allowed you to copy records but were a problem due to the track changes. Cassette tapes followed as a more natural fit with record albums. But then came CD's and people wanted to bootleg those so along came mp3s. Notice nowhere along the way was audio fidelity a prerequisite for adoption of a format. Same too with VHS vs Beta...BluRay won based on size alone...and those reel to reel tapes? Let's just say 8-tracks were the more appropriate format for its intended use...

Cheers,
Mike

PS - Keep on tracking!

Filmshooting

Super 8 Tracks?

Super 8 Tracks?

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