Fisher 8 Track

[Fabius]

I've finally got around to get the final piece for my sound system set up. It's a Fisher ER8110 STUDIO STANDARD 8-TRACK. It plays through the amp of my Pioneer SX-626 stereo receiver into Scott 2 way speakers. Groovy!

[RotarDad]

Fabius -  It is great to see those '70s and '80s stereos still in service!  I remember that 8-track sacrificed the high end of the audio spectrum, due to squeezing 8 tracks on one tape.  Was that really the reason?  Does your Fisher unit have better fidelity than the car stereos of that era?  Thanks for posting this!

[Mr. Bones]

Very Cool, Tom!

I hope that you still have as many 8-tracks as I do! !

Interesting factoid: My Dad was a tool and die maker at Avsco Plastics, a Division of Lear, then later, Gates. He made some of the original prototypes for the shell, and internal parts. for the 8-track. I have some early rollers, etc., that didn't make the grade. Turns out the miracle material to make it a success was Delrin.

If I dig far enough into storage, I'm sure I have some pics of Da' with  Bill Lear.

Best regards!

[jsowers]

That could be a very good 8-track deck. I got a Fisher Studio-Standard amplifier when I was a kid in high school in 1975 and it still works OK. I just upgraded to a Pioneer receiver instead. For a while in the mid-1970s they made some pretty good stuff. My amp even had a mike input and inputs and outputs for two tape recorders.

I had a buddy that had a Fisher Studio-Standard receiver of the same vintage as my amp and it was always a great performer. I had to replace a capacitor in it one time, when it lost the ability to sense a stereo FM broadcast. I was taking electronics at the time and it was quite a learning experience, and a class project.

He also had a Viking 8-track recorder and that thing would do the most imperceptible edits of any tape deck I ever used, including my reel-to-reel. Just no click, pop or anything between the two parts. You had to pull out the tape and push it back in, of course, but since the motor was always moving it had very little to be activated to continue recording. We could string together all kinds of stuff edited on the fly and it would sound like you had physically edited the tape with a razor blade and splicing tape.

It's nice to see someone collecting the old gear.

[AE_Collector]

Far awhile I had an AKAI 8 track "deck" in my stereo system back in the early to mid 70's when I was "mid to late teens". Any 8 track that I had that was starting to "cause trouble" in the car would work just fine in the AKAI at home and I could at least make a copy to reel to reel and then make a new 8 track for the car. That AKAI would turn any 8 track without a problem. But, then it was time to upgrade to cassette and who knows where tge AKAI 8 track went to. If you see it check and see if my reel to reel us with it too.

Terry

[Fabius]

Does your Fisher unit have better fidelity than the car stereos of that era?  Thanks for posting this!

I had 8 tracks in the cars of my youth but really don't recall how they performed audio quality wise. I do remember the clunking when they changed tracks. This 8 track sounds good but not as good as my JVC TD-V531 (made in Japan) with 3 heads. I need to clean the 8 track head and demagnetize it.

I'm old enough to remember that when something was made in Japan (1950s) it was crap but by 1970 thru the early 80s the Japanese audio equipment was top notch, when brands like Pioneer, JVC, Nakamichi, etc excelled. 

[twocvbloke]

8-Track? Nah, you need a Tefifon:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBNTAmLRmUg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tTURrAWVYE

[Fabius]

That is interesting. I've never seen one of them.

[andre_janew]

I never knew they had such a thing!

[twocvbloke]

I learned of the Tefifon last May, was thoroughly impressed by how good it sounds for an era when shellac 78s were still the norm for the rest of the world, not to mention the capacity, from 18 minutes up to 4 hours, that's very impressive, all on a flexible tape...

Wouldn't mind finding one, but I think that they're probably as rare as hens teeth...

[Fabius]

Surprisingly there are a few on eBay. The ones built into a German tube radio of that era are pretty interesting: Not Cheap!

http://tinyurl.com/heau6xo

[twocvbloke]

Very pricey too, but they are rare now I suppose, but it is a shame no record labels took up the format, could have been a world leader of a format...

[rdelius]

there was a sound on film format in the us that used a loop? of 35 mm film with grooves similar to a phonograph record.early to mid 1940s. The military bought some for on the spot recording

[andre_janew]

I think around that time they also had a recording format that used something that looked like piano wire.  It may have been used by the US military as well.

[19and41]

Wire recording goes back even further than that.  It was sold as a recorder for telephone installations at the beginning of the last century.  RCA sold a cassette wire recorder shortly before WWII.

http://ethw.org/Telegraphone