Talk:Stereo-Pak

Lack of Sources
This article has very few sources. I know it is short but it contains lots of facts. Does it deserve a tag?WikiWiznerd (talk) 02:35, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Section redirect
Why is it that every time I come to this page it redirects me to the section on the differences between 4-track and 8-track? Try it yourself, click this link.

By the way I don't quite know enough about Wikipedia to fix it unfortunately. Hello, hello. 01:46, 22 April 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Elecbullet (talk • contribs)

Copy/paste
Parts of this article have been copied verbatim from other sources on the internet. Please remove these sections and replace them with paraphrased content. In particular, I found this link which contains content that is identical to the content in the History section of this article. talk 16:46, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Nope, the site says that it has been copied from Wikipedia. So in that case, it is not a copyright infringement. It says at the bottom of the page "This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Stereo 8".". Minima  c  ( talk ) 06:39, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Splices? No splices?
According to the present (06 Oct 2012) version of this article the tape is not spliced (with cheesy emphasis) yet, seemingly impossibly given this fact, the tape splices are mentioned in the very next paragraph as subject to breakage. It's either one or the other and I can't seem to dig anything up suggesting one direction or another. Ogre lawless (talk) 02:57, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

The article also insists (with cheesy emphasis) that the tapes are not spliced with conductive foil tape as 8-track cartridges are. This is patently false; I've come across many mid to late-60s 4-tracks that do have foil splices. I assume this is because 4 track tapes can still be run on 8-track players with varying degrees of success, and given that third-party "snap-in" pinch roller adaptors were also available throughout the late 60s and into the mid-70s specifically for that purpose. I'd write this bit into the article, but wonder if it's really worth it since it'll probably just get misconstrued as "original research" and be reverted accordingly. Oh well, I guess I may as well leave that little bit of misinformation in the article as it is; this is Wikipedia, after all. MXocross (talk) 02:08, 15 November 2012 (GMT)

Motorola fallacy
Motorola did not sell automotive record players. They were a pioneer in automotive radios. The popularity of the Victor Victrola did make "-ola" a common suffix for consumer audio devices, but that wasn't limited to phonographs. RCA (before they merged with Victor) sold a line of home radios called "Radiolas". Commercial automotive record players did not appear until the "Highway Hi-Fi" system marketed by Chrysler in the 1950s. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 170.35.224.63 (talk) 18:03, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Mess
This article is kind of a mess... GigglesnortHotel (talk) 21:05, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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Uncited material in need of citations
I am moving the following uncited material here until it can be properly supported with inline citations of reliable, secondary sources, per WP:V, WP:NOR, WP:CS, WP:NOR, WP:IRS, WP:PSTS, et al. This diff shows where it was in the article. Nightscream (talk) 17:15, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

LEDE SECTION
The in-car tape player that played the Stereo-Pak cartridges was called the Autostereo, but it was generally marketed under the common Stereo-Pak trade name.

The tape speed is lower than in Fidelipac – 3.75 inches per second instead of 7.5.

...on the back of the tape. The tape ends in a Stereo-Pak are not connected by a splice made of a conductive material as in the later "automatic" switching 8-track cartridges, therefore 4-track cartridge players had to be switched manually between programs 1 and 2 by a lever on the machine. Due to the method by which the tape is moved, it is impossible to rewind and often risky to fast forward a 4-track tape.

The splices in a 4-track tape can break due to age, handling, or poor manufacturing quality. This problem also affects other endless loop tapes, such as 8-tracks. The foam pads that tension the tape against the playback heads also deteriorate with age.

History
...around a single reel carrying a continuous loop of standard ¼ inch plastic oxide-coated recording tape running at 3¾ inches/second (9.5 cm/s). Program starts and stops were signalled either by a conductive foil splice or sub-audible tones. The tape was pulled from the center of the reel on the right side, passed across the opening at the end of the cartridge and wound back onto the outside of the same reel on the left side. The spool itself was freewheeling and the tape was driven only by tension from the capstan. George Eash, also of Toledo, an inventor who had rented space in Cousino's building in the 1950s, later reversed Cousino's playback design, modified the cartridge (1954, receiving a patent in January 1957) and marketed it under the name Fidelipac. These cartridges were first used in radio stations (broadcast cartridges) from 1959 on to program commercials and single song hits.

...and player, both of which used a 7-inch disc and ran at 16 RPM.

Notable celebrities such as Frank Sinatra had 4-track players installed in their cars. Music was released on 4-track tape for automobile enjoyment and later for home use. Muntz manufactured 4-track tape players and pre-recorded 4-track cartridges until approximately late 1970, by which time the Stereo 8 8-track tape had become the dominant format. Columbia Records was one of the few major record labels to release music recorded on 4-track cartridges on a widespread basis.

The Stereo-Pak cartridge had four monaural or two pairs of stereo tracks. To switch back and forth between the two program tracks, a manual lever is engaged, which physically moves the head up and down mechanically. The Stereo-Pak did not switch tracks automatically, unlike the later Stereo 8 cartridges.

The tape was coated with a slippery backing material patented by Cousino, usually graphite, to ease the continuous slip between the tape layers. This coating sometimes also caused the pinch roller to slip, leading to poor speed control and tape flutter. Due to these problems, 4-track cartridges were never popular with audiophiles. While the design allowed simple and cheap players, unlike a two-reel system it didn't permit winding of the tape in either direction. Some players offered a limited fast-forward by speeding up the motor while cutting off the audio but rewinding was impossible.

After taking a ride with Muntz in a 4-track player-outfitted car, Bill Lear, maker of the Lear Jet, modified the 4-track technology to create the Stereo 8 cartridge, widely known as the 8-track. Most notably, eight tracks were squeezed onto the same ¼" tape, reducing potential audio quality, but allowing twice as much music to be put onto the same length of tape. The pinch roller was also an integral part of the 8-track cartridge, although many early rubber rollers would suffer from deterioration because the rubber had not been fully cured. Once this was discovered, all later rubber pinch rollers were "fully cured" (hard) rubber, or plastic rollers (introduced by RCA in 1970) were used instead. Thanks to his connection to Motorola, which made radios for Ford Motors cars, Lear was able to ensure that 8-track players would be included in many Ford cars, and they became popular mainly during the early- to mid-1970s. 4-track tapes gradually faded away and were gone by late 1970, as most people switched to 8-tracks, although players compatible with both 4-track and 8-track tapes were sometimes made. Inexpensive adapters were available that permitted 4-track tapes to be played in 8-track players. The adapter was a rubber pinch roller attached to a small metal plate that would clip into the opening in the 4-track cartridge. 4-track tapes are still in-demand by collectors. Likewise in-demand are the "gidgets" that enable a 4-track to be played in an 8-track cartridge player (although the automatic track change will not be triggered and manual changing is required).

There were also a limited number of 4-track tape players for use in the home but these did not become popular.

Differences between 4-track and 8-track cartridges
The Stereo-Pak differs from Stereo 8 in that its ¼" magnetic tape contains four data (music) tracks, whereas 8-tracks have twice the tracks in the same amount of space. Thus, 4-track tapes have the potential for higher audio fidelity.

The main difference in 4-track cartridge design from 8-tracks is that 4-tracks lack a built-in pinch roller (usually made out of rubber or plastic) which would grip and help move the tape; a hole is left in the cartridge for a pinch roller to be inserted from inside the 4-track player itself, leaving room on the tape deck to play small, medium and large tapes. The large opening in the bottom of the 4-track cartridge, for admission of the pinch roller, leaves 4-track tapes more susceptible to trapping dirt and other substances besides those normally found inside cartridges, and requires a greater level of mechanical complexity in the player, as the pinch roller must be inserted and retracted vertically through the bottom of the cartridge.

The other difference to note is the fact many 4-track cartridges were produced with see through or transparent cases, whilst 8-track cartridges are not. It is believed this is because a 4-track album release will contain twice as much tape as the equivalent 8-track release, as the album is split over 2 programmes and not 4. If buyers could see how little tape was inside some 8-track releases they may feel "short changed" and hence 8-track tapes were not released in see through cases.

Other uses
In the 1970s through the mid-1980s burglar alarms could (in some jurisdictions) be equipped with a tape dialer which would dial a number and repeat a recorded message when the alarm was tripped. Many of these tape dialers used the 4-track transport described here. They have been largely replaced with digital technology, e.g., Ademco SESCOA format dialer.

They were also popular with radio broadcasting and were used for playing commercials and songs, but were eventually replaced by CDs and computers.