On May 15, 3:38*am, DeserTBoB wrote:
On Wed, 14 May 2008 23:59:33 -0700 (PDT), TBerk

wrote:

I have a whole bunch of 8-track, cassette and vinyl records I'm
transferring to Hard Drive with the end result = burning a bunch of
CDs.

(Hows _that_ for an On Topic post?) snip

I was going to do that, but the 8 tracks are so inferior in overall
quality to 256 or 320 JS or ST mp3s, I ****canned them all recently,
selling the "collectables" to old-timer 8 track fiends. *The rest went
to the local Sally Ann.

Only three carts actually made it to CD...a long-ago home recorded dub
of Frank Zappa's "Absolutly Freeeeee" (1967), which was done on a very
good machine by someone who obviously knew something about tape (rare
in 8 track), Zappa's "Orchestral Favorites" from a Canadian Dolby cart
off my Wollensak 8075 (turned out quite nice, about the same as 3¾
RTR) and Chicago XIX and CTA II. *Everything else was too limited in
bandwidth, suffered from partial erasure due to sloppy maintenance,
had "crinkles" and/or had all the other usual 8 track crap...out they
went. *The startling reality? *Everything I ****canned was available
on either high bit rate mp3s, many using a later encoder such as LAME,
or I got the CDs. *Some of the more popular titles were candidates for
dubbing, but upon evaluation using the best deck available, they fell
far short of making it and were replaced by CDA or mp3. *However, when
only a 128 Kb/s mp3 is available, and especially if it was done with
the notoriously bad old Xing encoder, 8 track quality is pretty
competitive, because 128s sound so ratty with all that hacking and
slashing taking place. *But once you get up to 256 (or a high big rate
VBR), it's clear...a GOOD mp3 rip (caveat being not all ARE good;
there are many plonkers out there like Charlie Nudo who don't know
their asses from a soggy Kaiser roll) beats 8 track any day, and in
all ways.

It was a fun diversion...until I realized that hey...it doesn't matter
HOW much tweaking and rebuilding I do of the machines, nor how much
servicing and splicing of these carts I do...it all adds up to the
same damned thing...a ****ty format! *



I always said DeserTBob was a part-timer who had no real desire to
enjoy the 8-track format- he was a low-life cassette dumb-ass, who
stumbled in here after he lost his job with Bell Systems and went
insane- so after rehab he took up something he thought was "easy" like
8-tracks.

The problem is, he never had a decent single ended tube amp to play
them through.

see ya, DoucheBoob...no 8-tracks for you !

only a dumb-ass would transfer 8's to CD, why bother, that's defeating
the whole purpose