8-Track Cartridge Transfer to CD | Audio Restored

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8-Track Cartridge Facts

• Primarily devised for in-car entertainment, the 8-track was developed in 1964 by a consortium consisting of the Lear Jet Corporation, Ampex, Ford Motor Company, General Motors, Motorola and RCA Victor Records. It enjoyed a brief period of popularity in the UK, but failed to make any impact in the majority of Europe.
• Any one of the four stereo programmes are accessed at any one time by the reproducing head being physically positioned at the correct height in relation to the recorded tracks.
• This is achieved by pressing the ‘Program Selector’ button which invokes the mechanical shifting of the head (accompanied by a noisy ‘clunk’!), aligning it with the next pair of channels on the tape. Occasionally this could lead to playback errors such as ‘bleed’ or ‘channel cross-over’ as the head would sometimes lose its correct alignment, hence the occasional need to check and adjust head azimuth.

Cartridge Refurbishment

As with studio NAB (‘jingle’) carts, the pressure pads within the 8-track cartridge shell are usually found to have deteriorated over the years becoming at best, ineffective and at worst – sticky. This can damage both the tape and the tape head if playback is attempted. Therefore before playing any 8-track cartridge (even shrink wrapped old “new” stock) we open each cartridge, replace the pressure pads, lubricate the tape table and check/replace the metal foil strip, as invariably all three of these will have failed.