The Last Days of the 8-Track Tape

The enormous success of the Stereo-8 did not end the succession of competitors. In fact, in the late 1960s and 1970s there were numerous other variations on the basic endless loop cartridge. Most of these were aimed at niche markets rather than mainstream commercial music. The best known was the Playtape, a tiny cartridge introduced in the fall of 1966 which later re-emerged in slightly modified form as the medium in Dictaphone Corp. telephone answering machines in the 1970s. Answering machines, in fact, were a major source of new endless loop variations from the 1960s on. The success of the Fidelipac in radio spawned a host of imitators, including both the well known Audiopak, the Aristocart made in Canada, the Marathon made by some Massachusetts firm, and the Tapex. One modification of the 8-Track itself was a cartridge that contained not only an endless loop of tape but also a filmstrip, syncrhonized to the audio on the tape.

Playtape cartridges, pictured here, measured about 4 inches on the long dimension, came in mono and stereo versions and in varying lengths.

The manufacture of 8-track players, which had begun at Motorola in Illinois, shifted almost entirely to Japan between 1965 and 1975 (actually, Japanese success in this market started earlier, as Earl Muntz had farmed out his production of Muntz Stereopak players to Japanese contractors). There were a few efforts to revive the flagging American tape recorder industry, but to little avail as the foreign firms cranked players out in huge numbers using cheap labor and favorable import regulations. Many US electronics manufacturers (even the prestigious Ampex Corporation) would find it more profitable to sell Japanese-made players under their own brands. Nonetheless Quatron Inc., a Maryland firm, had some success making the (now coveted by collectors) Model 48 automatic 8-track changer, but its star soon faded. By the time the major record labels stopped offering new releases on 8-track, there were no domestic manufacturers of home or auto players. Conditions were quite different in the manufacture of tape and cartridges, where American firms held on to most of the domestic market.

The story of the 8-track ended with both a bang and a whimper. The major record labels announced their decision to stop supporting the 8-track format between 1981 and 1983. However, some continued to issue top-10 pop albums for some time. Also, 8-tracks of most popular releases were available well into the 1980s via the mail order record clubs. Also, there were numerous small labels that supported the format for some years.

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