alt Hacker NewsNo one used 8-track for the quality. It was portable, and it would play continuously (it looped), great for sitting with your honey in a secluded area. And the physical quality of 8-tracks weren’t great. Based on the number of 8-track cartridges I saw on the side of the road while out running, the tape would apparently come loose from the cartridge and render it unusable.
By 1980, 8-tracks were relics being displaced by cassette.
The heads on 8-track players would move physically to access the 4 pairs of stereo and inevitably would mis-track as they aged.
This was more awful than just the marginal fidelity of a perfectly aligned 8-track machine.