I honestly cannot believe you found one of these! I remember reading in an early 70s HiFi/electronics magazine about the development of an 8-track machine that was supposed to draw the tape out of the cartridge. I never thought anything like it went into production as I've never seen any pictures or examples of such a machine! I would almost be surprised if that isn't a prototype. I can see the issues it would have with being rough on tighter tapes that just don't have the slack in the tape pack. Glad you got it working. Take good care of it.
There are a number of 8-track deck models that have play/stop buttons/keys. Many of the Akai/Roberts decks (with similar build quality, large motor... as this one above) have play/stop/FF/record buttons.
Sorry to be offtopic but does anyone know a method to get back into an instagram account?? I somehow forgot my login password. I love any tips you can give me.
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The other head is the crossfield head (that's what X stands for in the model number). Basically, bias frequency is not mixed with the audio signal during recording, but instead is emitted by a different head, positioned at the back side of the tape. The technology was used only by Akai (a.k.a. Roberts) and Tandberg on reel to reel decks and I've never seen it implemented in an 8 track recorder. The crossfield technology offered lower distortion and higher quality recordings, but it was much harder to align, and eventually both the heads and electronics got better, eliminating the need for this technology.
Thanks for the explanation, I always wondered what exactly the "crossfield head" technology was that Akai/Roberts/Rheem decks used. I've come across several of their open reel decks with it.
If you watch the way the tape threads, from around the 12 minute mark, you can see that the other head does not come in to contact with the back-side of the tape. Therefore, it cannot be a cross-field head. Furthermore, if this were a cross-field head, where is the erase head? That means this is the erase head.
@@johnpratt2045 yes, you are absolutely right. Also, a cross-field head would contact the tape from the rear, not from the oxide side. Then my remark about the X in the model number standing for cross-field is also irrelevant.
@@AttilaSVK In Akai's reel-to-reel tape recorders of the era x in the model number did indicate that, so it was a perfectly reasonable assumption. Perhaps "X" in this case indicates it was experimental or some sort of engineering sample.The lines scribed into the metal of the rear panel marking the hole-drilling positions, from the 6.35 minute mark, seem unusual for a product that was in production. I wonder if any more of these have surfaced?
I believe that head on the left is the erase. It has only 2 wires and conected to that nearby coil that is probably the oscillator for erase. One hell of a find.
I think you're right Dollar Guy - I believe it's "cross-field" head system also used in Akai and Roberts open reel machines of the period. It was supposed to be superior (for some reason I can't remember).
Quality bank vault build. Roberts was a very high end tape equipment manufacturer for decades. I think you should have a dignified service for the Roberts and let it pass into the universe.
I can confirm the quality of Roberts. I have a Roberts Rheem reel-to-reel that I inherited from my father; it has NEVER been serviced (although it's on my to-do list) and it works perfectly aside from the volume pots needing a brief spritz. The crackle is almost nonexistent. They just don't make stuff with quality like that anymore...
Awesome machine.....I would love to have one of these. No telling how many times i've run across tapes with bad pressure pads and with a machine like this, you don't need to worry about them. Plus, it looks nice as well!
Not sure if anyone else has mentioned but I think that extra head is for recording bias, not erase. The X in the model name is a giveaway. The method is called "cross-field bias" and was licensed from Tandberg in the 60s and 70s. Roberts, Tandberg and Akai all featured it at one time. For slower tape speeds, it's supposedly a more "accurate" way of applying the bias, by offsetting it slightly from the recording gap. I once had a Tandberg open reel deck that had it, and it was effective to a point... The problem was that alignment could be really difficult to keep steady and would vary with different tape coatings and thicknesses. In the end it was dumped for improvements in circuitry instead. (And now I'm seeing comments about this machine being built by Akai, so yes, I'm pretty sure it's a separate bias head)
If you watch the way the tape threads, from around the 12 minute mark, you can see that the other head does not come in to contact with the back-side of the tape. It runs against the same side as the play/record head does. Therefore, it cannot be a cross-field head. Furthermore, if this were a cross-field head, where is the erase head? That means this is the erase head.
(being midway in the video) It's an Akai. See the "old style" "A" logo on the PCB shown at 1:03 Rebranded and / or made in corporation with Robert G. Metzner. The X stands for "X-field" (cross field heads) being a predecessor of the GX (Glass X'tal) heads. You can see the "dual head design" at 09:58 It only used it's "secondary head" when recording. The Crossfield principle being: a second (opposite) head was needed in order to record in better soundquality (upper bandwith: 10 kHz - 20 kHz), it provides the needed bias to recording, so it's not an erase head, it actually increases soundrecording quality. An 8 track tape doesn't allow a second head behind the tape (due to design of the physical cassette itself) thus the tape needed to be "pulled out" in order to accommodate the crossfield head. Some of the switches / knobs used come directly from the akai X-330 D RTR recorder (1968) The exact same "vent design" is also used on the akai AA-7000 / AA-7000-s (1968 - 1973) Your 848-X has a build in amplifier, so it indeed could be used as a "stand alone" deck, plug in a set of speakers and you were done. In "akai terms" it would've been known as a "non-D" deck, so it would imply that there also would've been a Roberts 848-X D version at the time (not sure)
@@danieldaniels7571 Yes indeed. The older players always seemed to be better built and less problematic. In the early 1970s they started cranking out cheaper players and those were the ones that would seem to knock themselves out of alignment more readily. Of course, that was also right around the time they started taking shortcuts with the cartridges, too.
xaenon Some of those cost cutting moves with the tapes really brought down performance, like hard plastic pinch rollers and cheap foam pads as opposed to felt on springs. Not all the later players sound bad, though. I have a basic Realistic that was made in the ‘80s that sounds surprisingly good. It does knock itself out of alignment and need adjusted regularly, but it’s design makes that simple and easy without the need to open it. What gets me is that no one (far as I know) ever made a high end player with a stationary 8-track head.
@@danieldaniels7571 My speculation is that It would likely have been a very expensive thing to do. The common 8-track tape head is a pair of pickups in a housing for 1/4 inch tape. For a stationary head, it would require EIGHT pickups in that same housing - that's a fair bit more expensive. Even a pair of four-track heads in an offset configuration would be more expensive. The whole idea of 8-Track was it was supposed to be for 'everybody' and that meant affordable, and if you start throwing expensive hardware into your product it means the price has to go up. THAT, in turn, drives the price up, and while what you're offering really is a superior product, everyone else is going to be selling a cheaper product that does basically 'the same thing', just in the older, less sophisticated way. And let's be honest here. It was the EIGHT TRACK. This was a format developed specifically for cars, and at the time of introduction, aside from providing you with the means to select your own music, only had to do one thing: Sound better than AM. FM wasn't all that common in cars when the 8-Track came to market. By the time there was really a call to improve the 8-Track, the cassette had already been vastly improved with the new CrO2 formulation and could turn in pretty good performance... and from a smaller, more convenient format. By the mid-1970s, the 8-Track was very much seen as 'riding off into the sunset', so the manufacturers weren't willing to throw money into trying to improve the format. The only real reason it stubbornly hung on for another decade or so was because it was so heavily entrenched - lots of cars still running around with 8-Track players, lots of home stereos still sporting 8-Track decks, lots of tape cartridges still in music collections. Sort of like how record players retained a '78' speed setting well into the 1970s (and many newer ones today feature it!), even though the US hasn't had a significant production of 78s since the mid-1950s.
In the Hi-Fi store,,,, They wanted to be and succeeded in... Impressing the top salesperson... By its Huge list of goodies. Sadly 75% of the world is full of cheap people!
I'm wondering if the unit you have is an engineering prototype or a test production run? It looks hand made and a lot of the metal is raw unfinished. Note too the scribe marks where the screws are on the back. Was this ever a real product you could buy?
What a strange creature, but a very high quality one. Can't say I've ever come across one of those. Talk about over - engineered to last forever ! Thanks for the upload.
That mystery head is probably the bias head. Akai was using "Cross Field" bias in those days where the bias was applied via a separate head that swung into place across from the record pole pieces, Combo record/play/erase heads had been available since at least 1964 and had become almost universal by the end of decade.
There would have to be an erase head, the record head wouldn't erase the tape enough and the previous recording would be heard afterwards. but it could be the case that they are intentionally putting the erase head so close to the record head so that it both erases and also biases the record head.
@@EdgarsLS Akai did use separate bias heads until 1972 on many models. So did Tandberg. If there is an "X" in the model number it is guaranteed to have the separate bias head. It is the whole reason for dragging the tape out of the cartridge. I didn't say anything about not having an erase head. There was always an erase head.
What a lovely piece of engineering! Pretty sure that first head is just an erase head when you compare the wires running to the heads and the shielding or lack thereof..
The other head is definitely an erase head! At first, i thought Akai/Roberts had devised a way to add 'Cross Field' recording to an 8 track. Still, since this doesn't rely on the cartridge pressure pads, or the azimuth of the cart to be correct, this would produce a superior result from a pre-recorded tape, and likely make some awesome sounding recordings as well. With the machine controlling the tape feed and head wrap, this would also reduce wow and flutter significantly. With the capstan in constant motion, this also improves tape start up, particularly for recording. An amazing machine and I would love to find one of my own! Great find!
Just a thought regarding the BB. Maybe when you had or someone else had replaced the belt there was some type of bearing ball there already, but when it was being disassembled/repaired it fell and no one noticed. Just a possibility. Great mechanism for feeding the tape to the heads. How come there is no FF button? Most 8 tracks had at least FF. How do you reset the tape counter? Did not see a reset button. Is there a glass or plastic cover over the window to the heads and counter? Thanks for saving this machine and giving it new life.
That system make the tape run against two fixed posts that scrub the tape and can ruin it. Anyway it sounds very well. Very unusual drive system for an 8-Track machine :-)
I was thinking that myself, but it’s really less harsh than what the tape has to run against inside the cartridge, and 8-track cartridge tape stock is sturdy with a dry lubricated backing.
@@danieldaniels7571 Coming very late to the party 🥳. The posts actually touch the tape on the oxide-free side, like a VCR. So there is no "scrub" issue.
I LOVE this machine - perfect design for 8-tracks. What I need to master my 8-tracks onto something else as most have no pads! Due to the design of this deck, 8-track never sounded so good, contact with the head is precise and constant.
Hi. Denny Bowsher here. The extra head is the famous Akai--same same Robert's, "crosfield bias head that greatly increased the high frequency recording capablity of the tape. This was a truly great tape machine and was unique to Akai as in my 1800SD machine.
To bad they could see dragging the tape over an INTERNAL pinch-roller! one of the big drawback of 8-tracks vs. the original 4-track tapes, was the inclusion of an in-cartridge pinch roller :(
That's a great bit of kit. Yes, I'm listening to the audio through my phone. An interesting technology that spawned NAB broadcast cartridge variants as used in radio studios. Thanks for posting this 👍
From the days when they built gear with more metal than plastic. There were some observations made about the head compliment, that it was based on the same cross field technology Akai used in their open reel decks. I too was about to come to the same conclusion when I saw the heads come together around the 10:45 mark. Then I wondered how they could do cross field effectively through two layers of tape. Never mind the problems with having both layers of tape in contact with each other, and moving at opposite directions, but I digress. What counts though is when tape is loaded and moving. This is seen around 11:50, and shows the head on the left side of tape path being held in place by the tension of the moving tape. Hence the head on the left side is merely an erase head. The physics of magnetic head design dictate that cross field cannot work across a gap that large, and any magnetic field intense enough to try would affect the other tracks on the tape. As to resetting the counter, there appears to be a lever over the counters reset button, but it's unclear how it's activated. Maybe Techmoan can answer that one when he does his video on this deck. ;-)
Super cool video and super cool bit of kit! Minor correction, UK mains is 230V, but 220/240V devices work just fine for reasons I won't pretend to know
It's interesting that as soon as you inserted the cartridge into the machine, the tape counter started moving even though you hadn't yet pressed start/play.
I hope you removed that broken tape that is wrapped around the capstan at 5:05. That could be the reason why you have a lot of wow and flutter. I owned several 8-track players and recorders (Panasonic, GE and Realistic) and none of them had a mechanism like that!
Not possible, but what really impressed me that seems to be going unnoticed is how big the capstain is. I’ve never seen one near that size, not even on a reel to reel deck.
That is a most incredible, excellent 8-track machines!! I believe it is a separate erase head and record/play head. They did have single erase/record/play heads (really two heads in one head container) at the time, but I believe they separated them out as this is a higher end machine, and probably (perhaps) to have slightly wider tracks on the erase head than on the R/PB head to better erase previous recordings (many times in my 8-track heyday (2005)) the erase did not do so good with alignment with the original recordings and the old recordings would bleed through if the azimuth and alignment was not really good. The pausing is good, as the motor pulling the tape when not in play mode is an annoying thing. The one thing that would have made this even a better unit is if the 8-track pinch roller was slightly pushed away from the capstan for pausing (the Realistic TR-801 is like that, so you have a smooth starting and stopping with its pause). Have you tried making any recordings on this unit yet?
I could have bought a teac a few years ago had Dolby and big vu meters , I didn't have any tapes. I took the prerecorded tapes that had spliced them together and filled a 7" reel tape. In hindsight I probably should not have done that.
The "X" in the model number indicates crossfield heads. The head that moves into place when you press "record" applies the bias signal when you record, which is the same idea as what they used on reel-to'reel decks like their 770X deck. It allows for better high frequency response when recording.
Really beautiful machine from time when audio was played mechanically, not like today when everything fits in single boring chip. One thing is interesting @18:42 it is written "OUT PUT" as two words. I always thought that you would write "OUTPUT". Did that changed in the past 50 year?
Now if they had extracted the tape far enough to use its own pinch roller rather than the cartridge's own roller, it would have been fantastic! Really it bent the format a bit because there's a risk of getting tape slack.
I'm not sure if that's a good design. Pulling the tape out like that tends to unspool extra slack within the cartridge. When you press stop, the pinch roller is literally pushing the slack back into the cartridge and does not wind back onto the reel.
Back in the early seventies I had a Wollensak 8-track recording tape deck. I always thought the Wollensak was the best, especially the later version that added Dolby B. The fidelity of the Wollensak was pretty good for the format. I'd like to know how this deck with it's unique tape to head isolation mechanism compared to the Wollensak ones? I added an outboard Teac AN-60 Dolby B unit to mine and I thought I was pretty cool as a young teen. By the late seventies the writing was on the wall that 8-track was passing with the quality of the compact cassette ramping up. While in college I switched to cassettes and like my bike when I got my driver's license I never looked (or listened) to the Wollensak again. I've been a tapehead since I was about 12 years old when I bought my first quarter track reel to reel. That was also a Wollensak unit and I remember being in middle school anxious to get home to play with it. I got it from a company few remember called Burstein & Aoolebee who specialized in liquidation of electronic gear as well as parts. I loved reel to reel so much I bought a Akai 4400 the summer before my senior year in 1976. How much did I love it? Well, my folks let me and my three best friends go to Panama City Florida on summer vacation loosely being chaperoned by some adult family friends who were actually there because one of our high school sororities called Ad Astra rented a house on the beach for the Ad Adstr gals. I took a receiver, my reel to reel and one of my friends brought a pair of Dynamo A-25 speakers. We were on the second floor of the not so famous Casa Loma Motel... so with the electronics in our room I ran speaker wire over the balcony and down to the pool where we had the Dynamo speakers for a pool party that lasted about an hour before we were told we'd have to stop! That's how much I was into stereo gear , tape recording, and music in general. Crazy in every sense of the word. We took the party to the room and got away with that for some reason! So, I'm a tape nut who wasn't averse to loading up my gear for whatever...and I still have a Pioneer 1020 R2R and multiple cassette decks. I thoroughly enjoyed your video on this unique deck. I'd still like to know if the frequency response and the signal to noise ratio of this deck was better than my old Wollensak, which until now I thought was the best ever made.
Sounds incredibly good for an 8-track player. The main problem in this format was the pad and this device bypass it. It's interesting to know if there's a risk of damaging the tape like some VCR's, otherwise this is best 8-track player (and recorder) ever made.
Awesome deck. One question about the playback head: Does it move up and down when changing tracks like other 8 track decks? Reason I'm asking is that I can't tell if there's a mechanism in there to do that so I wondered if it actually has 8 heads in there and just selects the correct ones for playback of any particular program.
If you look closely you can see that it is moving the head up and down when changing programs. I like your question. I’ve always wondered why apperently no one ever made an 8-track cartridge player with a stationary 8-track head. Those heads were more expensive, but it’s not like they didn’t already exist; they’re used in 1/4” 8-track studio reel decks and also in the duplication machines used to mass produce 8-track cartridges. The moving head constantly plagued the format with azimuth issues, and a higher-end player with a stationary head like that and tape guides would solve it. One would think that by the mid-‘70s there was a market for it. I’ve often wondered how difficult it would be to build one using an old deck.
@@danieldaniels7571 thanks for the reply! Yes I always wondered why no-one made a stationary head deck. Especially when the quad decks came out and the quad head did half of what I suggest already. Ah well, what might have been.
I'd like to see a review of the original MP3 cassettes like the MobiBlu and others from that era. Compare to the one or two crappy ones currently available. The very first model didn't have an SD slot, but the company quickly introduced a 2nd model with SD.
I can't believe Roberts used such a piss poor pause scheme! Here, the way they pause is to just cut power to the motor for the "Pause" button! In most other 8 track recorders (including the ones that sold for $100) back in the day, they used a mechanical pause.
It eliminates most of the inaccuracy of the regular push in to the head and change the track while wishing for the best alignment....Are you familiar with the channel Boz Fone? He restores 8 track machines of all makes..
Watching these makes me think. I've got an old Ferguson Videostar FV 22L VHS system. Cracking system and made some interesting noises whenever it loaded and unloaded. But now it seems it is stuck thinking there's a tape loaded constantly and because of this gets stuck unloaded even after it has fully ejected and once it is loaded it cannot play at all. Any ideas what this issue could be?
Not familiar with the unit, but VCRs that exhibit this issue typically have a problem with the IR emitter or detector used to detect end of tape. Next thing I would check would be the mode switch.
In around Dec. '73 I asked for and got a Wollensak 8-track recording deck. I always thought it was the best that was ever made. I think as of Jan. 1st 2021 I may have been mistaken. This is possibly a better executed design to extract the most fidelity possible (depends a lot on the head as obviously the transport is quite robust). After I originally received my Wollensak Pioneer made a serious stab at higher quality 8-track recorders, but I still felt those would likely be only as good (if as good) as the Wollensak made by 3M. But I digress. This deck sounds pretty clear on the top which is idicative a your good head alignment and a quality head. I think this deck deserves to quite be possibly called the best consumer 8-track recorder ever made? I think this unit deserves a tweak I made to my Wollensak in '74. I added a TEAC outboard Dolby B NR unit. With that addition I would assume this deck could run with some pretty good cassette decks. Great find! I'm curious if any of the combo reel to reel decks made by Roberts/Akai had this same unique transport?
8-Track is such a weirdass format for me. Being born in 1985 I only ever encountered 8-track cartridges in the shape of "rom pacs" for the Exidy Sorcerer II computer which actually used 8-track casings for their program carts.
Is this the only machine of its type that exists or there are others that pulled the tape out that wasn't even aware 8 track made a machine like this very cool it's almost like a VCR
I would guess the closest thing would be a twin capstan deck as was used in some professional computer decks. With twin capstans tape tension can be controlled.
Where did the endless loop 8 track tape find so much slack without breaking? That's a very interesting design and quite a find! While most of the 8 track players seemed well built, as most better quality stereo were back then, sadly I remember the tapes sounding like crap, with the inevitable break in the middle of the one song you got the tape for happening with track change.
Queen on 8-track? “Thunderbolt and lighting, very, very frightening!” *KA-CHUNK*
I honestly cannot believe you found one of these! I remember reading in an early 70s HiFi/electronics magazine about the development of an 8-track machine that was supposed to draw the tape out of the cartridge. I never thought anything like it went into production as I've never seen any pictures or examples of such a machine! I would almost be surprised if that isn't a prototype. I can see the issues it would have with being rough on tighter tapes that just don't have the slack in the tape pack. Glad you got it working. Take good care of it.
There are a number of 8-track deck models that have play/stop buttons/keys. Many of the Akai/Roberts decks (with similar build quality, large motor... as this one above) have play/stop/FF/record buttons.
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Roberts aka. AKAI was always at the top of the consumer/professional audio industry. Setting the standard for the rest!
Next week on Techmoan...
Retro Cave
nice
The other head is the crossfield head (that's what X stands for in the model number). Basically, bias frequency is not mixed with the audio signal during recording, but instead is emitted by a different head, positioned at the back side of the tape. The technology was used only by Akai (a.k.a. Roberts) and Tandberg on reel to reel decks and I've never seen it implemented in an 8 track recorder.
The crossfield technology offered lower distortion and higher quality recordings, but it was much harder to align, and eventually both the heads and electronics got better, eliminating the need for this technology.
Thanks for the explanation, I always wondered what exactly the "crossfield head" technology was that Akai/Roberts/Rheem decks used. I've come across several of their open reel decks with it.
If you watch the way the tape threads, from around the 12 minute mark, you can see that the other head does not come in to contact with the back-side of the tape. Therefore, it cannot be a cross-field head. Furthermore, if this were a cross-field head, where is the erase head? That means this is the erase head.
@@johnpratt2045 yes, you are absolutely right. Also, a cross-field head would contact the tape from the rear, not from the oxide side. Then my remark about the X in the model number standing for cross-field is also irrelevant.
@@AttilaSVK In Akai's reel-to-reel tape recorders of the era x in the model number did indicate that, so it was a perfectly reasonable assumption. Perhaps "X" in this case indicates it was experimental or some sort of engineering sample.The lines scribed into the metal of the rear panel marking the hole-drilling positions, from the 6.35 minute mark, seem unusual for a product that was in production. I wonder if any more of these have surfaced?
I believe that head on the left is the erase. It has only 2 wires and conected to that nearby coil that is probably the oscillator for erase. One hell of a find.
Good observation
I think you're right Dollar Guy - I believe it's "cross-field" head system also used in Akai and Roberts open reel machines of the period. It was supposed to be superior (for some reason I can't remember).
Quality bank vault build. Roberts was a very high end tape equipment manufacturer for decades. I think you should have a dignified service for the Roberts and let it pass into the universe.
I can confirm the quality of Roberts. I have a Roberts Rheem reel-to-reel that I inherited from my father; it has NEVER been serviced (although it's on my to-do list) and it works perfectly aside from the volume pots needing a brief spritz. The crackle is almost nonexistent. They just don't make stuff with quality like that anymore...
DashCamAndy Not without paying 100 times what we used to pay from the 60s and 70s. Amen to what you said.
Awesome machine.....I would love to have one of these. No telling how many times i've run across tapes with bad pressure pads and with a machine like this, you don't need to worry about them. Plus, it looks nice as well!
Though Roberts was an American company, their tape recorders were all made by AKAI.
It's not the Roberts Radio that's based in South Yorkshire? o.O
I had a reel to reel just like the one in the movie Apocalypse Now.. Ride of the Valkyries scene.
th-cam.com/video/30QzJKCUekQ/w-d-xo.html
as a notorious akai collector i felt something was similar=)
Not sure if anyone else has mentioned but I think that extra head is for recording bias, not erase. The X in the model name is a giveaway. The method is called "cross-field bias" and was licensed from Tandberg in the 60s and 70s. Roberts, Tandberg and Akai all featured it at one time. For slower tape speeds, it's supposedly a more "accurate" way of applying the bias, by offsetting it slightly from the recording gap. I once had a Tandberg open reel deck that had it, and it was effective to a point... The problem was that alignment could be really difficult to keep steady and would vary with different tape coatings and thicknesses. In the end it was dumped for improvements in circuitry instead. (And now I'm seeing comments about this machine being built by Akai, so yes, I'm pretty sure it's a separate bias head)
If you watch the way the tape threads, from around the 12 minute mark, you can see that the other head does not come in to contact with the back-side of the tape. It runs against the same side as the play/record head does. Therefore, it cannot be a cross-field head. Furthermore, if this were a cross-field head, where is the erase head? That means this is the erase head.
@@johnpratt2045 It can be both. "X" always designated "Crossfield" in Akai-made stuff.
(being midway in the video) It's an Akai. See the "old style" "A" logo on the PCB shown at 1:03 Rebranded and / or made in corporation with Robert G. Metzner. The X stands for "X-field" (cross field heads) being a predecessor of the GX (Glass X'tal) heads. You can see the "dual head design" at 09:58 It only used it's "secondary head" when recording. The Crossfield principle being: a second (opposite) head was needed in order to record in better soundquality (upper bandwith: 10 kHz - 20 kHz), it provides the needed bias to recording, so it's not an erase head, it actually increases soundrecording quality. An 8 track tape doesn't allow a second head behind the tape (due to design of the physical cassette itself) thus the tape needed to be "pulled out" in order to accommodate the crossfield head. Some of the switches / knobs used come directly from the akai X-330 D RTR recorder (1968)
The exact same "vent design" is also used on the akai AA-7000 / AA-7000-s (1968 - 1973)
Your 848-X has a build in amplifier, so it indeed could be used as a "stand alone" deck, plug in a set of speakers and you were done. In "akai terms" it would've been known as a "non-D" deck, so it would imply that there also would've been a Roberts 848-X D version at the time (not sure)
See, kids, 8-Track really COULD sound good.
I’ve had several 8-track decks over the years that have sounded good, and some were very basic. Half the battle is head azimuth.
@@danieldaniels7571 Yes indeed. The older players always seemed to be better built and less problematic. In the early 1970s they started cranking out cheaper players and those were the ones that would seem to knock themselves out of alignment more readily. Of course, that was also right around the time they started taking shortcuts with the cartridges, too.
xaenon Some of those cost cutting moves with the tapes really brought down performance, like hard plastic pinch rollers and cheap foam pads as opposed to felt on springs. Not all the later players sound bad, though. I have a basic Realistic that was made in the ‘80s that sounds surprisingly good. It does knock itself out of alignment and need adjusted regularly, but it’s design makes that simple and easy without the need to open it. What gets me is that no one (far as I know) ever made a high end player with a stationary 8-track head.
@@danieldaniels7571 My speculation is that It would likely have been a very expensive thing to do. The common 8-track tape head is a pair of pickups in a housing for 1/4 inch tape. For a stationary head, it would require EIGHT pickups in that same housing - that's a fair bit more expensive.
Even a pair of four-track heads in an offset configuration would be more expensive. The whole idea of 8-Track was it was supposed to be for 'everybody' and that meant affordable, and if you start throwing expensive hardware into your product it means the price has to go up. THAT, in turn, drives the price up, and while what you're offering really is a superior product, everyone else is going to be selling a cheaper product that does basically 'the same thing', just in the older, less sophisticated way.
And let's be honest here. It was the EIGHT TRACK. This was a format developed specifically for cars, and at the time of introduction, aside from providing you with the means to select your own music, only had to do one thing: Sound better than AM.
FM wasn't all that common in cars when the 8-Track came to market.
By the time there was really a call to improve the 8-Track, the cassette had already been vastly improved with the new CrO2 formulation and could turn in pretty good performance... and from a smaller, more convenient format.
By the mid-1970s, the 8-Track was very much seen as 'riding off into the sunset', so the manufacturers weren't willing to throw money into trying to improve the format.
The only real reason it stubbornly hung on for another decade or so was because it was so heavily entrenched - lots of cars still running around with 8-Track players, lots of home stereos still sporting 8-Track decks, lots of tape cartridges still in music collections. Sort of like how record players retained a '78' speed setting well into the 1970s (and many newer ones today feature it!), even though the US hasn't had a significant production of 78s since the mid-1950s.
In the Hi-Fi store,,,,
They wanted to be and succeeded in...
Impressing the top salesperson...
By its Huge list of goodies.
Sadly 75% of the world is full of cheap people!
Now that is one beautiful 8-track deck! Thanks for sharing it.
I'm wondering if the unit you have is an engineering prototype or a test production run? It looks hand made and a lot of the metal is raw unfinished. Note too the scribe marks where the screws are on the back. Was this ever a real product you could buy?
Your eight track tapes would definitely last longer with this machine!! it’s an audiophile 8 track player!!😱
What a strange creature, but a very high quality one. Can't say I've ever come across one of those. Talk about over - engineered to last forever ! Thanks for the upload.
That mystery head is probably the bias head. Akai was using "Cross Field" bias in those days where the bias was applied via a separate head that swung into place across from the record pole pieces, Combo record/play/erase heads had been available since at least 1964 and had become almost universal by the end of decade.
There would have to be an erase head, the record head wouldn't erase the tape enough and the previous recording would be heard afterwards.
but it could be the case that they are intentionally putting the erase head so close to the record head so that it both erases and also biases the record head.
@@EdgarsLS Akai did use separate bias heads until 1972 on many models. So did Tandberg. If there is an "X" in the model number it is guaranteed to have the separate bias head. It is the whole reason for dragging the tape out of the cartridge.
I didn't say anything about not having an erase head. There was always an erase head.
Wow. Now that has got to be the king of 8-track players. All good quality 8 track players should've used this sort of mechanism.
What a lovely piece of engineering!
Pretty sure that first head is just an erase head when you compare the wires running to the heads and the shielding or lack thereof..
That looks like a Perfect 8-track mechanism !
The record head you mentioned only erases the tape before it passes over the "play" head (which is now acting as the record head).
The other head is definitely an erase head! At first, i thought Akai/Roberts had devised a way to add 'Cross Field' recording to an 8 track. Still, since this doesn't rely on the cartridge pressure pads, or the azimuth of the cart to be correct, this would produce a superior result from a pre-recorded tape, and likely make some awesome sounding recordings as well. With the machine controlling the tape feed and head wrap, this would also reduce wow and flutter significantly.
With the capstan in constant motion, this also improves tape start up, particularly for recording.
An amazing machine and I would love to find one of my own! Great find!
Probably the best quality 8 track player ever made
50Mhz or 60Mhz mains frequency... MHz???
That hertz...
that extra head is a Bias head. puts the bias signal on the back of the tape. I have a reel to reel that does the same thing. incredible sound
Thanks for the info! I appreciate it!
We had one of these back in the day and damn this brings back memories.
Caught this link over on TH, very cool and thanks for taking the time to do the video. A.R.
Just a thought regarding the BB. Maybe when you had or someone else had replaced the belt there was some type of bearing ball there already, but when it was being disassembled/repaired it fell and no one noticed. Just a possibility.
Great mechanism for feeding the tape to the heads.
How come there is no FF button? Most 8 tracks had at least FF.
How do you reset the tape counter? Did not see a reset button.
Is there a glass or plastic cover over the window to the heads and counter?
Thanks for saving this machine and giving it new life.
That system make the tape run against two fixed posts that scrub the tape and can ruin it. Anyway it sounds very well. Very unusual drive system for an 8-Track machine :-)
I was thinking that myself, but it’s really less harsh than what the tape has to run against inside the cartridge, and 8-track cartridge tape stock is sturdy with a dry lubricated backing.
@@danieldaniels7571 Coming very late to the party 🥳.
The posts actually touch the tape on the oxide-free side, like a VCR. So there is no "scrub" issue.
I think Roberts was a English company we had a few of their bits from the 70s and was always impressed with them
I LOVE this machine - perfect design for 8-tracks. What I need to master my 8-tracks onto something else as most have no pads! Due to the design of this deck, 8-track never sounded so good, contact with the head is precise and constant.
What a cool 8-track machine databits! Kind of sad you didn’t try dubbing an 8 track though... or maybe a future video is coming up? :)
Hi. Denny Bowsher here. The extra head is the famous Akai--same same Robert's, "crosfield bias head that greatly increased the high frequency recording capablity of the tape. This was a truly great tape machine and was unique to Akai as in my 1800SD machine.
To bad they could see dragging the tape over an INTERNAL pinch-roller! one of the big drawback of 8-tracks vs. the original 4-track tapes, was the inclusion of an in-cartridge pinch roller :(
That really is a special machine and you are very lucky to have found it. Gives a great sound, nice idea's in its design. Thanks for posting!
seems weird to hear an 8-track player with good highs.
That's a great bit of kit. Yes, I'm listening to the audio through my phone. An interesting technology that spawned NAB broadcast cartridge variants as used in radio studios. Thanks for posting this 👍
Actually, the broadcast cartridges came first.
From the days when they built gear with more metal than plastic.
There were some observations made about the head compliment, that it was based on the same cross field technology Akai used in their open reel decks. I too was about to come to the same conclusion when I saw the heads come together around the 10:45 mark. Then I wondered how they could do cross field effectively through two layers of tape. Never mind the problems with having both layers of tape in contact with each other, and moving at opposite directions, but I digress.
What counts though is when tape is loaded and moving. This is seen around 11:50, and shows the head on the left side of tape path being held in place by the tension of the moving tape. Hence the head on the left side is merely an erase head. The physics of magnetic head design dictate that cross field cannot work across a gap that large, and any magnetic field intense enough to try would affect the other tracks on the tape.
As to resetting the counter, there appears to be a lever over the counters reset button, but it's unclear how it's activated. Maybe Techmoan can answer that one when he does his video on this deck. ;-)
I’m still waiting on that Techmoan video
I grew up with 8-Track and I NEVER heard that kind of audio quality from an 8-Track, EVER!!!
Wow. Actually sounds crisp and clear.
Super cool video and super cool bit of kit! Minor correction, UK mains is 230V, but 220/240V devices work just fine for reasons I won't pretend to know
I wonder why they didn't keep up with this particular transport and play system. It could sound as good as an open reel deck.
This is, by far, the most epic video I’ve ever seen!!
Wow! Thanks!
It's interesting that as soon as you inserted the cartridge into the machine, the tape counter started moving even though you hadn't yet pressed start/play.
Wow, that's one fancy 8 track deck!
Very interesting player. It would probably be good for people like techmoan always having to fix 8 track pads, haha.
Never seen one of these!! A very rare and unique model.
I hope you removed that broken tape that is wrapped around the capstan at 5:05. That could be the reason why you have a lot of wow and flutter. I owned several 8-track players and recorders (Panasonic, GE and Realistic) and none of them had a mechanism like that!
looks like he removed it.
Great video. I’d love one of these so I didn’t have to replace every pad on every 8 track I buy.
That sounded FABULOUS!
Bizarre! How do you reset the counter?
Great 8-Track Tape Recorder/Player!!!
The design of it looks a lot like my akai 1800d reel to reel player. from the vu meter to the plugs on the back
Now if only 8-Tracks had the pinch roller in the machine instead of the cart, like on 4-tracks.
Not possible, but what really impressed me that seems to be going unnoticed is how big the capstain is. I’ve never seen one near that size, not even on a reel to reel deck.
A thing of beauty from back when stuff was made properly.
That is a most incredible, excellent 8-track machines!! I believe it is a separate erase head and record/play head. They did have single erase/record/play heads (really two heads in one head container) at the time, but I believe they separated them out as this is a higher end machine, and probably (perhaps) to have slightly wider tracks on the erase head than on the R/PB head to better erase previous recordings (many times in my 8-track heyday (2005)) the erase did not do so good with alignment with the original recordings and the old recordings would bleed through if the azimuth and alignment was not really good.
The pausing is good, as the motor pulling the tape when not in play mode is an annoying thing. The one thing that would have made this even a better unit is if the 8-track pinch roller was slightly pushed away from the capstan for pausing (the Realistic TR-801 is like that, so you have a smooth starting and stopping with its pause).
Have you tried making any recordings on this unit yet?
Great video excellent close up shots of the mechanism
I could have bought a teac a few years ago had Dolby and big vu meters , I didn't have any tapes. I took the prerecorded tapes that had spliced them together and filled a 7" reel tape. In hindsight I probably should not have done that.
I've been trying to find one of these for years, many many years.
I've never seen these 8 track players before. Those motors look like the type used on expensive 'cart' machines used by radio stations...
I have a Wollensak 8-track player. It’s not as complex as this, but it also uses a huge motor like this.
6:15 - Left is 'OUT', Right is 'PUT' :)
i once found a cassette converter with no cassette jammed on the door inside an 8 track.
Nice find
The "X" in the model number indicates crossfield heads. The head that moves into place when you press "record" applies the bias signal when you record, which is the same idea as what they used on reel-to'reel decks like their 770X deck. It allows for better high frequency response when recording.
I have the smartest viewers! Thanks so much!
I've got a 8 track player with a play and a ff button. But this is pretty awesome
Really beautiful machine from time when audio was played mechanically, not like today when everything fits in single boring chip.
One thing is interesting @18:42 it is written "OUT PUT" as two words. I always thought that you would write "OUTPUT". Did that changed in the past 50 year?
I think that some products have it as two words but others have it as one. Maybe it was to feel more proper? Or just be a different
Interesting as Roberts make DAB FM digital radios here.
Now if they had extracted the tape far enough to use its own pinch roller rather than the cartridge's own roller, it would have been fantastic! Really it bent the format a bit because there's a risk of getting tape slack.
all tapes could handle pulling out 3 inches but the big risk would be to those head cleaner tapes it would probably break it
I'm not sure if that's a good design. Pulling the tape out like that tends to unspool extra slack within the cartridge. When you press stop, the pinch roller is literally pushing the slack back into the cartridge and does not wind back onto the reel.
This is good.
They are coming back
Listening to the camera feed over a mono smartphone speaker, I can tell there are phasing issues with the audio.
That is one WEIRD 8 track machine.
Back in the early seventies I had a Wollensak 8-track recording tape deck. I always thought the Wollensak was the best, especially the later version that added Dolby B. The fidelity of the Wollensak was pretty good for the format. I'd like to know how this deck with it's unique tape to head isolation mechanism compared to the Wollensak ones? I added an outboard Teac AN-60 Dolby B unit to mine and I thought I was pretty cool as a young teen. By the late seventies the writing was on the wall that 8-track was passing with the quality of the compact cassette ramping up. While in college I switched to cassettes and like my bike when I got my driver's license I never looked (or listened) to the Wollensak again. I've been a tapehead since I was about 12 years old when I bought my first quarter track reel to reel. That was also a Wollensak unit and I remember being in middle school anxious to get home to play with it. I got it from a company few remember called Burstein & Aoolebee who specialized in liquidation of electronic gear as well as parts. I loved reel to reel so much I bought a Akai 4400 the summer before my senior year in 1976. How much did I love it? Well, my folks let me and my three best friends go to Panama City Florida on summer vacation loosely being chaperoned by some adult family friends who were actually there because one of our high school sororities called Ad Astra rented a house on the beach for the Ad Adstr gals. I took a receiver, my reel to reel and one of my friends brought a pair of Dynamo A-25 speakers. We were on the second floor of the not so famous Casa Loma Motel... so with the electronics in our room I ran speaker wire over the balcony and down to the pool where we had the Dynamo speakers for a pool party that lasted about an hour before we were told we'd have to stop! That's how much I was into stereo gear , tape recording, and music in general. Crazy in every sense of the word. We took the party to the room and got away with that for some reason! So, I'm a tape nut who wasn't averse to loading up my gear for whatever...and I still have a Pioneer 1020 R2R and multiple cassette decks. I thoroughly enjoyed your video on this unique deck. I'd still like to know if the frequency response and the signal to noise ratio of this deck was better than my old Wollensak, which until now I thought was the best ever made.
Fantastic sound, indeed. It is crazy how those polyester tapes havent dissolved after 40 years
Because of the lubricant used on the back and having to be tough enough to survive an endless reel cartridge, 8-track tape stock is very resilient.
Sounds incredibly good for an 8-track player. The main problem in this format was the pad and this device bypass it. It's interesting to know if there's a risk of damaging the tape like some VCR's, otherwise this is best 8-track player (and recorder) ever made.
A nice tapedeck. I like the idea they used so it wouldn't need pressure pads.
Awesome deck. One question about the playback head: Does it move up and down when changing tracks like other 8 track decks? Reason I'm asking is that I can't tell if there's a mechanism in there to do that so I wondered if it actually has 8 heads in there and just selects the correct ones for playback of any particular program.
If you look closely you can see that it is moving the head up and down when changing programs. I like your question. I’ve always wondered why apperently no one ever made an 8-track cartridge player with a stationary 8-track head. Those heads were more expensive, but it’s not like they didn’t already exist; they’re used in 1/4” 8-track studio reel decks and also in the duplication machines used to mass produce 8-track cartridges. The moving head constantly plagued the format with azimuth issues, and a higher-end player with a stationary head like that and tape guides would solve it. One would think that by the mid-‘70s there was a market for it. I’ve often wondered how difficult it would be to build one using an old deck.
@@danieldaniels7571 thanks for the reply! Yes I always wondered why no-one made a stationary head deck. Especially when the quad decks came out and the quad head did half of what I suggest already. Ah well, what might have been.
Now that's a cool mechanism!
Just wondering one thing, where is the screen on top? is it missing? got more pics? really interested! thnx!
I'd like to see a review of the original MP3 cassettes like the MobiBlu and others from that era. Compare to the one or two crappy ones currently available. The very first model didn't have an SD slot, but the company quickly introduced a 2nd model with SD.
Great video. What with the precarious nature of the eight track, this thing probably broke a lot of tape.
Just when I thought I saw it all
That’s a cool unit well built equipment never see anything like that today
I'll be hearing that music in my nightmares. Thanks.
The word you're looking for is "incompatible", not "obsolete". Obsolete implies it was replaced by something better (or at least newer).
Wow quality was amazing!!!
You sure love that mechanism!
There is a super BIG flywheel , unbelievable!
I can't believe Roberts used such a piss poor pause scheme! Here, the way they pause is to just cut power to the motor for the "Pause" button! In most other 8 track recorders (including the ones that sold for $100) back in the day, they used a mechanical pause.
It eliminates most of the inaccuracy of the regular push in to the head and change the track while wishing for the best alignment....Are you familiar with the channel Boz Fone? He restores 8 track machines of all makes..
Watching these makes me think. I've got an old Ferguson Videostar FV 22L VHS system. Cracking system and made some interesting noises whenever it loaded and unloaded. But now it seems it is stuck thinking there's a tape loaded constantly and because of this gets stuck unloaded even after it has fully ejected and once it is loaded it cannot play at all. Any ideas what this issue could be?
Not familiar with the unit, but VCRs that exhibit this issue typically have a problem with the IR emitter or detector used to detect end of tape. Next thing I would check would be the mode switch.
In around Dec. '73 I asked for and got a Wollensak 8-track recording deck. I always thought it was the best that was ever made. I think as of Jan. 1st 2021 I may have been mistaken. This is possibly a better executed design to extract the most fidelity possible (depends a lot on the head as obviously the transport is quite robust). After I originally received my Wollensak Pioneer made a serious stab at higher quality 8-track recorders, but I still felt those would likely be only as good (if as good) as the Wollensak made by 3M. But I digress. This deck sounds pretty clear on the top which is idicative a your good head alignment and a quality head. I think this deck deserves to quite be possibly called the best consumer 8-track recorder ever made? I think this unit deserves a tweak I made to my Wollensak in '74. I added a TEAC outboard Dolby B NR unit. With that addition I would assume this deck could run with some pretty good cassette decks. Great find! I'm curious if any of the combo reel to reel decks made by Roberts/Akai had this same unique transport?
8-Track is such a weirdass format for me. Being born in 1985 I only ever encountered 8-track cartridges in the shape of "rom pacs" for the Exidy Sorcerer II computer which actually used 8-track casings for their program carts.
Is this the only machine of its type that exists or there are others that pulled the tape out that wasn't even aware 8 track made a machine like this very cool it's almost like a VCR
That is awesome. If I ever got my hands on one I would collect 8-tracks.
Guess one couldn't buy one BB w/o having to buy 2,399 more? :D
Madness832 That BB pack is very affordable though, I have found a use for nearly 8 of mine.
That just means he can service 2,399 more of these units before he has to run to the store for more. LOL
Orichalcum beads! (LucasArts' "Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis.;)
Very interesting, love your channel but I was wondering how do you store all your equipment? A working museum perhaps? Or just a lock up?
He sells on eBay
Curious who is the artist of the intro and outro music?
Out Put. Love it.
Do you know if they made the same thing but used cassettes?
There are some players that run the cassette tight and lift the pressure pad up. Don't think you can fit any rollers inside a C cassette.
I would guess the closest thing would be a twin capstan deck as was used in some professional computer decks. With twin capstans tape tension can be controlled.
The dual capstan Nakamichi tape decks did just that. They had a cage around the head that lifted the tape right off the pad.
Where did the endless loop 8 track tape find so much slack without breaking? That's a very interesting design and quite a find! While most of the 8 track players seemed well built, as most better quality stereo were back then, sadly I remember the tapes sounding like crap, with the inevitable break in the middle of the one song you got the tape for happening with track change.