Sound Questions

[JONTHEBOMB]

1) Which has better sound quality 8-tracks or cassette tapes?

I have heard two conflicting opinions.  Dad says cassette tapes have better quality while Physics teacher (Mr.Samuell) says 8-tracks have better quality.

2) Are there only 4 different speeds records are played at?
(16rpm, 33rpm, 45rpm, 78rpm)  rpm = rotations per minute

Thanks for expanding my knowledge.

[markrvp]

Cassettes are higher quality than home 8-tracks (although professional "carts" used by radio stations are higher quality than cassettes).

Here is a passage from wikipedia:

Besides mediocre audio quality, 8-tracks were plagued by a pause and mechanical click (often in the middle of a recording) as tracks were switched, and faint audio bleed of adjacent tracks into the currently playing track, if the azimuth of the head became mis-adjusted. Also, the delicate cartridge mechanism was prone to breakage, so 8-tracks had generally short lives.

The popularity of both 4-track and 8-track cartridges grew from the booming automobile industry. In 1965, Ford Motor Company introduced built-in 8-track players as a custom option. By 1966, all of their vehicles offered this upgrade. Thanks to Ford's backing, the 8-track format eventually won out over the 4-track format.

Despite mediocre audio quality and the problems of fitting a standard vinyl LP album onto a four-program cartridge, the format gained steady popularity due to its convenience and portability. Home players were introduced in 1967. With the availability of cartridge systems for the home, consumers started thinking of 8-tracks as a viable alternative to vinyl records, not only as a convenience for the car. Within the year, prerecorded releases on 8-track began to come along at nearly the same time as vinyl releases.

The devices were especially popular among professional truck drivers as this was the first successful prerecorded playback device for use in a moving vehicle. Earlier attempts to apply mechanical disk players were troubled by skipping induced by vehicle motion.

Quadraphonic 8-track cartridges (known as Q8's) were also produced. The format enjoyed a moderate amount of success for a time but faded in the mid-1970s. These cartridges are prized by collectors since they provide 4 channels of discrete sound, unlike matrixed formats such as SQ.

However, another format appeared by 1972. The stereo compact audio cassette was much less than half the size of an 8-track cartridge. The cassette had been around as a monophonic dictation device since 1963, but was now a stereo, higher fidelity alternative.