the iconic audio format of the 1970s was the eight-track tape it was never known for the
best audio quality and especially not known for the best reliability but nonetheless it
was an inexpensive and convenient way to play music
sales of eight-track tapes peaked in 1978 when over 133 million of these things were
sold in the U.S. but after then eight tracks fell out of favor as quickly as disco and
bell bottom jeans did and by 1980 sales were eclipsed by the cassette tape which had been
increasing in popularity all through the 1970s and by the 1980s it was king and eight tracks
were relegated to the dustbin of history
nonetheless from around the mid-1970s to the early 1980s many people did have and wanted
to be able to play both formats and to fulfill that need there were stereo components available
which supported both cassette tapes and eight-track tapes but due to the physical differences
between the two formats that always required two separate mechanisms one for cassette tapes
and a separate one for eight-track tapes
after all they're completely different sizes they run at different speeds they use different
widths of tape and different track layouts and most importantly one is a miniature reel-to-reel
format and a cassette shell and the other one is an endless loop cartridge format so
it was impossible to make a one size fits all device which could accept both formats
but apparently soundesign didn't get the memo because this may look like one of their cheap
1970s stereo systems with an FM radio tuner an AM radio tuner and an eight-track
player
but if we take a closer look at the front panel it clearly says cassette - 8-track and
again down here AM FM stereo receiver cassette 8-track player so apparently they were able
to engineer a device which could play eight tracks and cassettes in the same slot the
question is how?
but before we ponder that mystery let's take a quick look at its other features as I mentioned
it has an AM/FM radio tuner
that's actually AM which sounds surprisingly good now I'll switch over to FM
and it has a lighted tuning dial including a stereo indicator that lights up when I tune
in a station broadcasting In stereo
and that's playing through these soundesign speakers these may not be the exact model
that it originally came with because I acquired these separately but they do match the styling
and these actually do have real tweeters unlike most soundesign speakers they have eight inch
woofers and three inch tweeters and on the back it claims the maximum power handling
of 15 watts RMS and I love how they have this graph on the front showing the frequency response
of the speakers from 20 Hertz to 15 kilohertz
on the back of the stereo system we can see its soundesign model 4645B it has connections
for an FM antenna and an input for either a turntable with a ceramic phono cartridge
or a line level input, a tape output, and also outputs for main and auxiliary speakers
and it's UL listed and was made in Japan
for a soundesign I'm impressed of the build quality of this stereo system for example
it has a pretty sturdy plywood cabinet not cheap particle board and on the bottom is
a sticker with the circuit diagram and a date code of August 1976 and here it is featured
in the 1976 Blue Book of Quality Merchandise it had a price of 125 dollars and thank you
to Grace Robbins for scanning this in for me
you already saw it playing an eight-track tape earlier but here's the moment you've
all been waiting for will it play a cassette tape as advertised and the answer is yes it
absolutely will
there is no rewind but we do get a fast forward
and the button that changes the program when you're listening to an eight track doubles
as an eject button for the cassette
it also auto ejects when it reaches the end of the cassette
in a moment we're going to open this thing up and discover the inner workings of this
miraculous device but just by listening to it I can already tell it shares some parts
in common between the eight-track player and the cassette player for example when I put
in an 8-track [Music] you can hear that rather noisy motor and also the noisy solenoid that
changes the program it's currently on program three pull out the 8-track put in a cassette
hear that same motor?
sounds the same.
now push the button to eject the cassette and it sounds like that same solenoid that
changes the programs on the 8-track and indeed it is because if I now put in the 8-track we're
on program four so ejecting the cassette actually changed the program of the eight-track player
at this point you may have realized that I've only taken it apart after I've already demonstrated
it that's because this thing did not require any repairs the only thing I've done so far
is spray some contact cleaner into the controls because the volume control was a little bit
scratchy and now that is fixed
and from the top the tape player looks like an ordinary eight-track player you can see
the motor the head the capstan and the solenoid which changes the program when you push the
button here it is at program one program two program three program four and then back to
program one and here's Mr. Sparky the sensor which automatically changes the program when
it detects the metal foil on the tape
so when I put in a cartridge that all looks completely normal for an 8-track player
but if you look way down inside there you can just about see the head for playing cassettes
so I'll put in a cassette and you'll see what happens
now I'll push the button to eject the cassette
unfortunately I can't find any indication of who manufactured this mechanism the only
thing on it is this sticker on the bottom saying it was made in Japan under license
agreement of Staar S.A. Brussels Belgium I looked that up in a 1970 they were granted
a patent for what they called a shiftable drive carriage cassette tape loading system
and I think this is what they're referring to
normally this stays out of the way so you can stick in an eight track and it won't be
obstructed but when you put in a cassette this swings up to provide the mechanism for
playing it I propped open the door and you can see way in the back is the head and capstan
for playing eight tracks but if I swing up that mechanism there's the mechanism for playing
cassettes which swings up when needed and drops back down when it's not needed you can
see it has a fixed post because it does not rewind so it only needs the forward direction
spindle and then you can see the head and capstan and pinch roller
looking at it from the side you can kind of see how this is essentially two mechanisms
sandwiched together on the top is the eight track player mechanism and down here is a
cassette player mechanism that swings up when needed for playing cassettes and then pops
back down when you eject it here I'll put in the cassette again
and here's the fast forward button I don't know why they needed such a big heavy metal
mechanism just to fast forward you can see it has two springs on it that's really quite
elaborate if I let go it starts playing again and I'll push the button to eject the cassette
here's the view from underneath when playing an 8-track
and now when playing a cassette
it uses the same motor and flywheel as for playing eight tracks but then there's this
idler wheel here which transfers power to this other flywheel which drives the cassette
mechanism
and you may have noticed that the idler is actually changing the direction of the rotation
when playing a cassette because if I align the cassette the way it's put into the machine
the wheels are going to be turning counterclockwise but if I carefully open this eight track
the reel is going to be rotating clockwise and falling apart in the process here's a
better look at it I'll hold it so it doesn't come unspooled this time the eight track rotates
clockwise while the cassette tape rotates counterclockwise
you also have to keep in mind that an 8-track runs twice as fast as a cassette eight-tracks
play at three and three quarters inches per second cassettes plate one and seven eighths
inches per second so that idler wheel actually does double duty and not only changes the
direction of the rotation for eight tracks and cassettes it also changes the speed
looking at the circuit diagram on the bottom we can see the eight track head and the cassette
head and there's the switch to go between them so the only thing that's actually switched
electronically is which head is connected to the rest of the circuitry all the amplification
and equalization everything else for playing a tape is exactly the same regardless if it's
a cassette or an eight-track only the heads are switched
so electronically there's almost no difference between playing cassettes and eight tracks
but obviously mechanically there's a whole lot more going on here than it would be for
just an 8-track only player or a cassette only player
it's a shame this multi-format cassette and eight-track player didn't catch on because
imagine if they would have inspired someone to create a VCR which can play both VHS and
beta you may think that's impossible but you probably thought what this thing does is impossible too
but I can think of several reasons why this multi-format player design didn't become popular
one is that they actually did too good of a job of making it look indistinguishable
from a normal 8-track player so if someone was looking for a stereo system which could
play both cassettes and eight tracks and they saw this on the shelf they would think it's
just a normal 8-track only player and they would pass it by
plus I think it was out of step with what the average consumer was looking for back
in 1976 when this was introduced because back then the 8-track was still the dominant music
listening format and cassettes were most popular for recording which is something this cannot
do because it's just a player not a recorder
and even if it could record it wouldn't be able to do what many people wanted and that
is to copy their 8-tracks to cassettes because it can only accept one at a time not both
nonetheless I enjoy taking a look at products which try to innovate new features and actually
work remarkably well but just didn't succeed in the marketplace and catch on including
both this combined cassette and eight-track player from soundesign in 1976 and also
this MP-ROM MP3 CD player from 1999 which also works perfectly fine playing through
the aux input of this stereo system