WORLD'S FIRST: 4 track cartridge player (in-car stereo) made in 1962

In the US work was being done to create a cartridge recorder in the early 1950s and George Eash created the first working prototype in 1954, but there was much resistance as the industry was comfortable with records and reel to reel tape recorders. Eash did manage to win orders from radio broadcasters in 1957. When Eash sold his rights to a private company, they began to manufacture 3 track car players on a small scale in 1961. Meanwhile Eash began working with Muntz who developed a new design of 4 track cartridge and player based on Eash's 3 track system. Car manufacturers saw the potential in selling cars fitted with a music player and pushed electronic equipment manufacturers to make these on a greater scale. The muntz 4 track design was put into production by various electrical brands after agreement of record companies to produce commercial music on 4 track cartridges. Craig was an established buyer from Japan and its sales rocketed with greater numbers of players being imported to the US. The vast majority were made by Pioneer. The 4 track was overtaken all too quickly, by the 8 track developed by Bill Lear in 1964. This system was based on the 4 track.

During 1962-64 Philips of Holland developed the Cassette Player and Recorder - the EL3300 (see elsewhere on MKKiani channel). In 1964 they pushed into the US market with a player (EL3301) which was more versatile and had a smaller cartridge - the cassette. It was a tough battle which the cartridge lost.

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Education

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• 3110
• 3110A
• cartridge
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• WORLD'S
• FIRST:
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• (in-car
• stereo)
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• 1962
• george
• eash
• earl
• muntz
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• lear
• jet
• mkkiani
• philips
• el-3300

[rarbiart]

the compact cassette adapter had an additional battery inside to operate?

[mkkiani]

@rarbiart You must be wondering about the cassette signals going to the head on the cartridge player. No, it was all driven with mechanical connections so no additional power was needed for the adapter. The signal from the adapter head was taken by wires to a coil which sat in front of the player head.

[shoprat17]

@lrd9999 ya, it's pretty good seeing i had to make some repairs to it when I first got it, I gotta little unit that I currently don't use that is just amazing.

[lrd9999]

@shoprat17 That player from 1980 does sound better than most; I could sense a bit of that "8 track haziness" but just a little. That deck can at least change tracks without the tape in; mine depends on the capstan shaft to complete the change. One cool thing about this format: it forces you to listen to at least 1/4 of each album (+ random blips of the rest); one can get a different perspective that way than by sticking to just the familiar tracks. An interesting piece of history.

[lrd9999]

@OlegKostoglatov That makes sense, an auto-rev cassette deck should have the same vulnerabilities as an 8 track player; no way to set the head perfectly for all positions. I just took a look at a 40 year old 8-track player in my basement; it had just 2 windings in the head with a cam for the 4 positions. It must not have gotten a lot of use; I could hear much more hiss than crosstalk. The chassis of the deck was built like a boat anchor; hardly any plastic.

[OlegKostoglatov]

I've heard of those, the Playtape was sort of a technological dead end much like the RCA Sound Tape Cartridge. I didn't think that they were LP length though, the videos I've seen of those had about two songs per program. I think like the RCA Sound Tape cartridges they monopolized the market rather then licensing them out, there were some record formats that died for the same reasons, a limited selection. The Columbia built Chrysler Highway Hi Fi's had the same problem.

[shoprat17]

@OlegKostoglatov they did, it was called the playtape, 2 track system longest playing were about the same as an lp and were significantly smaller than 8 tracks, however most unit were portable (however vw did apparently offer a play tape machine in the beetle at one time)

[shoprat17]

@lrd9999 check my channel out once, I have a few tracks on there recorded from 8 track. almost all of them are from pretty well worn in tracks, and even they are still pretty good. Being unable to rewind does bite sometimes, but sometimes what one could do is when one is over but they want to hear another at the end you could switch tracks and hear something in the middle and on some tapes it would time out good and you could swap to the other track

[mkkiani]

@OlegKostoglatov You should try adjusting the play/record head. There are usually two screws to hold the head in place, one is adjustable and controls the azimuth - ensuring that the head reads the right track so avoiding cross talk. Good luck.

[OlegKostoglatov]

On the other hand I have noticed that many of my cassettes have a cross talk problem, sometimes you can hear it during the quiet portions, always in reverse of course. It stands to reason that Phillips would improve the design of their cassette tapes, I think that the research department at Phillips rivaled that of RCA, G.E or the Bell labs at one time, I've found their equipment much better designed then most of their European rivals.

[OlegKostoglatov]

I think it was as I figured, the compact cassettes were originally intended for dictation so sound quality wasn't the original objective. I had forgotten about that, Dolby was for noise reduction not improved fidelity, apparently some of the later higher end eight track machines also had Dolby though I have never seen one that did. Noise and fidelity doesn't seem to be an issue with my 8 track machines at all, sometimes crosstalk if the tape is in bad shape or the head is a bit off.

[OlegKostoglatov]

Some eight track players have a fast forward feature, and because they operate in a continous loop you wouldn't need to rewind even if you could. I don't know where you are but eight track recorders seem to turn up on a fairly regular basis in my area of the world, in every box of eight tracks someone sends my way I find at least home recording cartridge so they obviously found some use.