Defective Quad 8 track?

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RandE

New member
Joined
Feb 20, 2022
Messages
3
Location
Wheaton, Illinois
I have about 30 quad 8 tracks and 29 of them play correctly on my HK 8+ player. I have a Simon and Garfunkel quad 8 track that will only play the program of track 1 even after it switches to track 2, either automatically or manually. The player says its on track 2 but it still plays track 1 program. I bought this used at a garage sale a long time ago and this is the first time I played it through. In other words as far as I know it never worked right. Just curious, has this happened to anyone else?
 
There are probably other threads here that delve into this in more detail, but Q8s are rare (and valuable) enough that you should open every used one you get and make sure that it's operating properly before you start playing them in an 8-track deck.

There are all kinds of problems that cause tapes to function improperly, but the main ones are the tape getting too tight and binding on the central hub and the adhesive on the foil splice drying out and the splice falling off.

Every tape I get, I spool it by hand to the splice point, cut (or peel) the old splice out, unwrap a few revolutions of tape from the central hub if it seems tight, and put a new foil splice in. To me it's worth the time and relative inexpense of a new splice as opposed to having a deck eat a tape and do irreparable damage (stretching, breaking, accordion-ing) to a 40 year old tape I'd have a tough time replacing.
 
I have about 30 quad 8 tracks and 29 of them play correctly on my HK 8+ player. I have a Simon and Garfunkel quad 8 track that will only play the program of track 1 even after it switches to track 2, either automatically or manually. The player says its on track 2 but it still plays track 1 program. I bought this used at a garage sale a long time ago and this is the first time I played it through. In other words as far as I know it never worked right. Just curious, has this happened to anyone else?
Maybe side one has been duplicated, try playing it in a stereo player if you have one available. Normally Q8 1 & 2 should be front channels of program 1 & 2. 3 & 4 should be back channels of program 1 & 2.
 
Unless it has been rerecorder over, it's not possible. Check out carefully the foam pad and replace it as needed, that may be the issue.
 
I find that my Q8 deck works fine if the foam pad is simply removed. That may not work with all decks if the tape is not properly contacting the head. Tapes with the metal spring and felt pad are of coarse preferred.
I don't bother with the metal splice I just use a regular splice and change the tracks manually. My only interest in playing the tape is to be able to copy it to the computers hard drive.
 
How do you copy to hard drive?
I have a multi-channel sound card the Digigram VX822HR and previously used the Delta 44. I use it with Adobe Audition 3.0 to record the tracks. You then use the Surround Encoder built into Audition to assign track position and save as a multi channel flac. Others use multi-channel USB sound cards. There should be some treads here about it if you do a search.
 
I have about 30 quad 8 tracks and 29 of them play correctly on my HK 8+ player. I have a Simon and Garfunkel quad 8 track that will only play the program of track 1 even after it switches to track 2, either automatically or manually. The player says its on track 2 but it still plays track 1 program. I bought this used at a garage sale a long time ago and this is the first time I played it through. In other words as far as I know it never worked right. Just curious, has this happened to anyone else?
(y) Welcome to the QQ forum @RandE
 
One of my latest acquisitions is defective. It's an S.A.M. (Sound-Alike Music) Ellie Moore sings Janis Joplin. Program Ones' Front Left channel is nothing more than a distorted mess. Something obviously went terribly wrong during duplication. Program Two is fine, but I also think the whole tape suffers from a channel swap error. Drums are in FL and BR, vocals all four. But if you swap some channels to put drums in the rear, it just sounds better....
 
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