On 3 Oct 2006 10:45:35 -0700, "Dan 3.75"
wrote:

I have not been here for awhile, however I had assumed that this site
was for the discussion of 8 tracks !!! I realize that there were a
couple of trolls dominating the conversation but I don't see one
comment about carts. Am I wrong about the intended format ??? snip

Take a look...I'm the only person to post anything cogent about 8
tracks lately, and it generated NO response. You, of all people,
should know why that happened...Charlie Nudo, aka 66fourdoor on eBay
aka et al, ruined this NG two years ago
with his psychotic behavior. Now, it's simply a venue in which to
bash in his empty head. It's a public service...beating him up in
here keeps him out of other NGs, although he's dead set about ruining
the alt.auto.makers.chrysler NG now.

As far as 8 tracks go, I'm pretty sure the "buzz" about them is pretty
much over. Prices are back down to a buck a cart at auction (and
less) and there's little interest. Some eBay wanna-get-rich sellers
try to sell used carts for $4.99 and such and they never sell. I've
just about had my fill of them and am dubbing most of the better ones
to digits, using ProTools to clean up as much as I can as far as bad
frequency response and hiss. Once my "grocery getter" Honda gets
retired probably in spring of next year, I'm done with 8 tracks as a
'listening' format. Too labor intensive, too space consuming, not
well enough sounding. You do see high prices for very late, mostly
punk releases, and the $4550 some-odd for the Sinatra-Jobim cart will
probably never be seen again, but these are "collector" items and do
not reflex prices of the medium as simply a music delivery format.

I did some calculation. If I'd spent all the time I've spent
rehabbing 8 track carts on cleaning/treating vinyl, I would've had
every disc in my LP collection cleaned and treated with LAST at least
four times, and I have a pretty large collection. Sure, buying used
LPs at fleabag stores and garage sales is a mixed bag...many are badly
handled and/or scratched, but I've noted that the amount of 8 tracks I
get with severe dropouts, wrinkles due to jams and other aural
impairments outnumber the percentage of bad LPs I get by a wide
margin. On top of that, many 8 tracks were dubbed on badly
maintained/aligned equipment, and have a tendency for horrid frequency
response irregularities and distortion. Notable for this were many of
the Ampex dupes, and even some of the earlier Columbias. Later CRC
releases were among some of the best, dub quality-wise. Many "sealed"
carts I get disappoint quality-wise, the rare exception being sealed
CRC releases, which I can generally count on to be as good as 3¾ IPS
RTR tape...which isn't all that good to start with either.

So, once the old car goes, the format goes. There's simply no reason
to hang on to 8 tracks for home use at all, as vinyl's always a better
quality dupe (with very few exceptions) and 8 tracks simply eat up too
much shelf space and require too much restoration maintenance. Also,
if one is going for the music (which is the whole point of collecting
any recorded media) earlier issues (without the horrid "remastering"
messes) of CDs are out there on the used market for not much more
money than the 8 tracks, and the quality is always better, 100% of the
time. Not only that, I can play my CDs at home on my Harman-Kardon
player or in either car, with not a worry about cleaning heads or
capstans or having a bunch of clunky carts scattered all over the
passenger's or back seat.