The 8-track etiquette school (part-1)

This is a thorough walkthrough of how to repair the plastic bracket that holds the sound head on 8-track players with the infamous plastic construction. In this example, we are working with a Realistic TR-169 player, but the procedure is largely the same on all players with a similar mechanism. This process can also be used as a preventative…

This is the procedure for restoring old 8-track cassettes by replacing the pressure pad and metal tape (also called "splice"). First, start by identifying what type of cassette you have and familiarizing yourself with how to open it without causing unnecessary damage to the cassette housing/cartridge or tape. Start by opening the cassette….

Here I will try to show how the 8-track system works and at the same time explain why proper adjustment of the sound head is so important to prevent the all-too-common problem of "sound contamination from neighboring tracks", so-called "crosstalk problems". What is a "track", and why are there 8 of them? First we need to clarify the difference between...

All old 8-track tapes need a bit of restoration before they’re playable again. In this post, we walk you through the entire process with a detailed step-by-step guide and instructional video: cleaning, pressure pad replacement, sensing foil splice removal and replacement, and final reassembly.

Join us for a first test and start-up of a new-old 8-track player of the type Realistic TR-169 (Model 14 935 TR-169). This model was produced until 1990 and is one of the very last models on the market for easy playback of 8-track cassettes.