! This content was not generated by AI. The script was written by me, I also do all the visualizations and editing. The only exception is the voiceover made by a robot reader who read the text I wrote ! Thanks for watching the video! If you’re enjoying the content and want to support the channel, hit the "Thanks" button below! 👍 Your support helps me create more great videos, improve quality, and keep things moving forward. Every bit of help makes a difference. Thanks for being here! 🤝
DAT was also held back because music industry types wanted a comb-filter installed to ensure that it could not perfectly duplicate a cd or high quality source.
Damn.... I just learned more about the 8-track player in the past 3 days participating in the comments of this video than any other video or article or whatever on the internet in my entire life. And I was just watching the movie "Stoned Age" and one of the guys in the movie was like "your tape player ate my tape man" and it was an 8-track that got chewed up. Lol.
TBH I wouldn't put Laserdiscs or 8-tracks as "biggest failures" or even "failures" on this list. 8-tracks filled a market void for many years, back when cassette tapes in cars just weren't feasible yet, while Laserdisc was never really a competitor to VHS (due to it being a non-recordable medium). LDs had competing video-disc solutions though, like RCA's CED (which I would call a market failure). Laserdisc tech also paved the way for CDs to happen and things that we took for granted on DVDs (subtitles, multiple audio tracks, commentary tracks, chapters, digital audio track, surround sound) all appeared first on LDs.
LD started out with better resolution, less noise on the (analog)sound. Then the added Digital (Optical) sound. Because the resolution was better, Letterboxing allowed for the true Widescreen presentation on standard 4:3 displays. (I watched ET on VHS before the LD edition was out. The opening scene lost so much in Pan and Scan.
8 tracks were a kinda failure . I believe it was developed by the inventor of the car stereo and Lear Jet . I had one not long after they were released . A couple years ago by then the audio cassette started to get popular and then even a year or so later the Walkman came out . Laserdiscs was THE format to watch video versions of movies . It's because of the Laserdisc that Hollywood started making letterbox videos of their movies along with the pan and scan videos on VHS tapes .
My LDs also I cherish because so much repertoire was available on them unavailable otherwise, even to now plus, being BIG for liner notes and whatnot. PLUS the more, now can be obtained for A TENTH of what they cost originally with compounded inflated dollars -- a collector's dream come-true.
Forgot to mention that some audiofiles also recorded on BETA AND VHS Hi-Fi VCRs. You could approach digital quality with these and record up to 6 hours per cartridge. Who needed expensive digital recorders?
With the 😮introduction of DBX and Dolby C noise reduction and improved recording heads, the compact cassette provided excellent sound at far lower costs than EL Cassettes and early digital recording formats.
Today, there are very few reasonably priced CD players unless you want an inexpensive Blu-Ray or DVD player. Most made today are targeted to the high-end audio market or the pro audio market. To access 2-channel audio on CD from a Blu-Ray player now, you have to use either the HDMI output or the SPDIF output (coax or optical depending on the player) and connect the output to a digital to analog converter which by definition convert the digital to analog if you have an older system with only analog inputs. If you have a more modern home theater system, use the HDMI output and plug it into an HDMI input on the receiver, and then go out of the receiver to your TV. If you have one of those UHD 4K disc players or Atmos/DTS:X compatible standard Blu-Ray player, you will want to use the eARC ports on the TV and the receiver. If the Sony Blu-Ray players are the BDP-S6700 up to the 4K UHD models, for the most part, they have SACD playback and if you have to use the digital coax output on these Sony's, it will downconvert the DSD on the SACD layer of a hybrid and a single layer SACD to a linear high resolution PCM which converts the signal to analog so that you can hear the music but for the SACD 5.1, you have to use the HDMI output and plug it into the HDMI input on a modern receiver otherwise, use an HDMI audio extractor that converts the HDMI output to the 5.1 analog connections used on AV receivers from the time SACD and DVD-A were introduced. The BDP-X800 players also play DVD-A as well as CD, SACD, DVD, Blu-Ray, 4K UHD discs, etc.
I have a bit of a different take on VHS vs. Betamax. Betamax quality was far superior to the VHS and Sony would have dominated the market with it. But therein lies the problem with competition. When JVC invented the VHS, Sony had no choice but to admit defeat because VHS was cheaper to manufacture and had longer recording times. They simplified the mechdnism and the VCRs were much less expensive as well. From a business standpoint the VHS mafe nuch more sense. From a quality standpoint, Betamax was one the highest quality formats on the market in the 80s and the higher costs of the VCRs and tapes reflected that. Sony fought to keep the format and they did well into the 90s fkr those who wanted a higher quality format. But it wasn't Sony's choice. They were foeced to make the inferior format if they wanted to survive.
Laserdiscs were quite popular in Japan - and with cinema enthusiasts in the US - using expensive projectors. And MiniDisc was extremely popular with street journalists/field teams to record interviews with people. Small device, high capacity, and a way successful audio quality for voice and report snippets.
I had 3 Sony Mini Disc decks, as well as a player / recorder in my car. I really loved that format. I could carry my entire CD collection in 1 briefcase in my truck. I still have a home deck and several discs with music on them.
Laserdisc was truly one of the best formats that ever existed. DAT was the ultimate format for studio quality sound in consumer stereo systems. The problem wasn't hugher costs in this case. It was commercial recording studios wanting control of accurate music reproduction and copyright claims. DAT really wasn't a failure. It was the perfect format for musicians and producers to record their music onto the format and take it fo the studio and bring home the finished product in the same fornat. Nowadays you just need a laptop with your music and project files on it and the only time you need a big studio is to get it mixed and mastered by a professional so it's ready for streaming and publishing.
As noted, Stereo 8 was not a failure. Several of its predecessors/contemporaries ultimately were, however. For example, the RCA Sound Tape Cartridge (1958-65), PlayTape (1966) and the Muntz Stereo-Pak 4-Track player (which was the direct predecessor of the Lear Jet 8-Track). The RCA SelectaVision video disc player was a competitor to Laser Disc and an even bigger failure. Also, the Polaroid Polavision video camera was DOA due to the introduction of VHS video cameras.
Elcaset failed mainly due to the sudden improvement in hi-fi cassette deck quality around the time it was released. Improvements in head manufacture and tape formulations including TDK's Super Avilyn tapes in the late 70s narrowed the gap sufficiently that very few normal human beings would be able to hear any advantage from using Elcaset. By 1981, Dolby C arrived on high-end cassette decks and was capable of giving better than expensive Type IV tape performance from relatively cheap Type I tapes using a technique called spectral skewing. Anyone who understood the advantages of Dolby C would likely have been using it for their own recordings as it improved transparency dramatically.
@@MrSlipstreemI like to equate Elcaset to DAT and 8-Track to the standard Cassette. If Elcaset was released before the standard Cassette, Sony would have dominated the market the same way as Betamax would've been if JVC didn't come out with VHS. I feel really bad because Sony invented some of the best formats only to be crushed by the competition that ultimately lead to their demise. You can't really say that about Laserdisc because Pioneer had no competition for it and they dominated the format from the very beginning. I'm sorry the minidisc end DCC formats didn't get the recognition they truly deserved and needed in the industry. If cost wasn't a factor, most people would have chosen the higher quality formats. But money rules and business is paramount. So whatever wins from a lower cost is what's going to rule the market and industry.
DCC could have been great. I would have loved to have had one except they cost a fortune. It wasn't that people were happy to put up with the crappy sound of cassettes, rather hi quality CDs were already everywhere by then so people were only using cassettes to record stuff. Cassettes especially Types II & lV were really good quality by the 90s and compared to a decent analogue deck, the cost of DCC was just astronomical. Analogue cassettes did the job well enough. In the end DCC disappeared and I finally got an MD recorder in 2001, but within 2 years CD burners were suddenly super cheap & everywhere.
Laserdiscs didnt end in 1997 but last movie was in 2001 and playersnwere made till December 2009. It wasnt popular but still had following and still does.
We are producing the worst sounding formats today that have ever existed. Recordings today are the worst sounding recordings in the history of audio. Computer distorted compressed crap. Car stereos today are the most horrific thing I've ever heard. Go back 40 years and listen to a cassette inside a car with a separate non class D amp and you will be beyond shocked of just how much tone it has and just how far we have fallen on sound quality today
actually the stereo 8 was called 8 track by everyone and it sounded better than cassettes but was bigger and had an irritating problem with the foam rotting away in cheap models making them unplayable...
I sometimes wonder why 8-track ("stereo 8") had such bad quality. From a technical perspective, the format had some design aspects that are superior to the Philips Compact Cassette: The tape ran at 2x speed, so high-end frequency response should have been very good. And while it does need to fit 2x as many tracks... the tape width is *almost* 2x as wide. So I'd say the track width could stay nearly the same... resulting in nearly the same SNR... if not better due to the tape speed increase! People also joke that 8-track players "knock their head out of alignment 4 times per playback", but this didn't have to be the case; Fostex made 8-track open-reel-to-reel decks that used 6.35mm (1/4") tape, so precision fixed heads with 8 coils existed! These could have been used for 8-track Cartridge players too, with a fully electrical "program change", no mechanical head-jostling necessary. There's also no technical reasons why CrO2 and metal tape formulations and Dolby NR -- the things that improved cassette fidelity -- couldn't have been introduced to 8-track Cartridges too. The quality would have been phenomenal, better than Compact Cassette's achievements! The ONLY thing I can possibly think of that could MAYBE be detrimental to sound quality but inevitable in the 8-track format, is if the tape has a problem with its dry-lubricant coming off the backside and contaminating the oxide coating and playback head. Other than that... There's no reason why they should have sounded lousy.
I have 8 tracks that sound relatively good, and I have 8 tracks that sound lousy, with lots of gradations in between. It depends a lot on the quality of the duplication. It's the potentially bad aspect of any pre-recorded tape no matter the format. With a good recorder and source, people could often make better sounding tapes at home vs what they could buy in the store.
I agree. On paper 8-track should have been a better format. My theory is the tape formulation itself. When cassettes first took over they didn't sound much better. They were just smaller and had more convenient functions such as rewind and fast forward which we could not do with the good ol 8-track. But after they took over, as time went along, they came up with better tape formulations. If 8-tracks lasted longer and used the same tape formulation as cassettes I think maybe they would have sounded a hell of a lot better. I live above a vintage record store and bought a bunch of 8-tracks from there. And got a Pioneer player off Ebay to hook up to my stereo. It's a quality player that just needed a little love and it sounds decent with some of the tapes. Not the best but decent. I just bought it for something to collect really.
I think lack of development was a major contributing factor. When you consider that Dolby C arrived on a few high-end cassette decks in 1981 and was capable of giving better than Type IV tape performance from Type I tapes due to its spectral skewing technique, no other existing domestic tape format could compete without similar development. I have two 1990s cassette decks here that, when using Dolby C, have an overall frequency response of 20Hz to 20kHz within 1dB and a signal-to-noise ratio approaching 80dB with a cheap TDK FE Type I tape, so that shows how far the compact cassette came from its early days as a portable mono dictation machine. When you consider that very similar performance to this was available from cassette decks as early as 1981 if your pockets were deep enough, then on a multitude of hi-fi cassette decks from the mid 80s on, there really would have been no point in developing 8-track to this point anyway as it would likely have been audibly indistinguishable from cassette whilst still having the drawbacks associated with a bulky uni-directional cartridge system. Compact cassette as a format was capable of being SO much better than most people remember, largely due to the enormous number of cassette decks on the market that were totally incapable of doing the format justice.
@@teddine7366 If memory serves, Maxell XL-II tape stock may have been available in 1/4" by the late 70s. I used it all the time on an open-reel deck in the early 80s and it performed very well down at 3 3/4 IPS. Recordings from a hi-fi FM stereo receiver sounded identical to my young ears at the time, so it must have been close to flat up to at least 15kHz and tape hiss was below the level of the source. That was on a stereo half-track deck though. I have no idea how well it would have performed with 8 narrow tracks. Many cassette decks can record beyond 20kHz with the same formulation at 1 7/8 IPS. Used with Dolby C, the signal-to-noise ratio can be very close to 80dB.
Compact Cassettes were not that bad, as you have mentioned. After all, I have recorded very high-quality music on cassettes, which offers a better dynamic range than the recent mp3 music files!
Eventually, everything becomes obsolete. This is a fact but, we still love what we did and do-still. My white-wax collection of cylinders from before the turn of the nineteenth century, I shall always cherish.
Getting rid of 3D is a bunch of whining people who decided that nobody should have it. There are a lot of people who really want it and think it’s fun. Let the people who don’t want it not buy it. The Electric car was tried many years ago and failed, now they try and shove them down everyone’s throats. Freaking country has been hit hard with this crap
@ I had the LG EC9300 and it had passive 3D. Man it was so much fun to be able to watch 3D on an Oled TV, unfortunately it got burn in. But currently my wife was so kind to allow me to put a 132” ALR screen with the AWOL 3500 ultra short throw projector, when I had that lg Ec 9300 I had bought almost every 3D movie, it sucked not being able to watch them for so long. I want all Godzilla movies and every single film they can make to have a 3D version, except I don’t want any of these woke garbage movies that they’ve come out with. Boy hollyweird has truly become awful
DVD-Audio was missed. Man that was an incredible sounding medium that was way too complicated for the regular public. It had a format war with Sony too, SACD. Both failed and both had incredible sound quality.
@@multimedium_channel_en they will always be a sore spot for me, they should have taken off because the audio quality was as good as it could possibly be.
@@multimedium_channel_en Blu-ray audio is a real ear opener. I have the Dolby Atmos mix of Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon. I've never heard anything like it!
@@multimedium_channel_en High end audiophile labels, the Japanese market, the hi-fi Hong Kong market and the classical world still release music on SACD to this day with most titles being remasters of old jazz, blues, classical (as I have mentioned) and classic rock/pop music known for high fidelity sound.
Before the end of the century Sony make Dolby S. Audio magazine try to compare Dolby S with DAT DCC or with DAT. I'm not really sure of clear winner. Do you?
And now a want a laser record player. I am bummed I can't get one and it never came out. Well, I still need to get my hands on one of those elusive linear tracking record players. I gave your channel a subscribe and a like by the way.
The ELP LT-1XA laser turntable was available for a short while. It was incredibly expensive and performance was diabolically awful compared to using a conventional diamond stylus.
Phillips marketed a video cartridge recorder/player in about '76 or '77. I worked at a distributor that sold them. Absolute junk. I have disliked Phillips products ever since. (It might have had the brand name NORELCO on the product, I don't remember for sure.)
I grew up with CDs in the late 90s and early 2000s they sound grood of course, cassette tapes are generally horrible. However, the earily Bluetooth and compressed sound of new TVs is equally as bad it's gotten better tho. I recently got a Zenith 8 track player and a case of 8 tracks. 8 tracks sound great. I heard 8 tracks had better quality than most cassette tapes and I believe that. 8 tracks spin faster and blows cassette out the water except maybe the latest high end sony cassettes.
Just as it is today, very few a interested in quality. We strive for years to get Hi-Fi, top quality sound and vision and what do people listen music on now Smart speakers that are not even stereo and earbuds. True Quadro was the thing they should have stuck to.
Warner/Rhino and also the Dutton Vocalion audiophile label in the UK are big on remastering old quad recordings for Blu-Ray Audio discs in the case of Warner/Rhino in their Quadio series and SACD in the case of Dutton Vocalion. Audio Fidelity during the end of their time issued some quad mixes on SACD as well, targeting the audiophile.
DAT, DCC, and MiniDisc had something else - copy protection - that hurt them. If users could have made lossless mix tapes from tracks from CDs, they might have been a success. Also, Laserdisc was far more successful that RCA's stupid videodisc format that was played with a stylus. I'd consider RCA's videodisc format far more of a failure than Laserdisc.
I am from Eastern Europe, and we also never had these) But I’m lucky, I used to be a journalist, so I had opportunity to see some interesting products. When I came to Western Europe for the first time I was crazy about all those products in stores… In 2007 I lived in USA, and I was shocked how easy someone can get any new product from HiFi market ))
I was sad that Philips lost the video format wars. Early VHS machines looked awful on UK PAL 625-line TVs. V2000 wasn't broadcast quality either, but it got a lot closer than VHS did at the time. Plus it had loads of amazing features including automatic dynamic tracking as standard from day one, perfect freeze frame and perfect picture search. I still have one fully working 1983 Philips V2000 machine and another near-identical Pye model for spares.
alot of the formats went to pro gear like vhs to adat betamax to betacam dat the data ones theres tons of data back up that could be re used some how the thing scsi data can be a right pain i have some akai DD8 units that take dds 4 drives right pain to jazz a round with like the yamaha D24 decks they are ace have some 5 1/2 mo drives are bad news best to keep away from
@@Dexter649 I think maybe they just picked a comment from a hat and posted it. It doesn't mean anything. However, it did remind me of the two things that don't lie, be we audiophiles or not-- our ears. They always should have the final say about what sounds good.
! This content was not generated by AI. The script was written by me, I also do all the visualizations and editing. The only exception is the voiceover made by a robot reader who read the text I wrote !
Thanks for watching the video! If you’re enjoying the content and want to support the channel, hit the "Thanks" button below! 👍 Your support helps me create more great videos, improve quality, and keep things moving forward.
Every bit of help makes a difference. Thanks for being here! 🤝
Why use shitty TTS voices? Why not read the script yourself?
it sounds and looks boring
DAT was also held back because music industry types wanted a comb-filter installed to ensure that it could not perfectly duplicate a cd or high quality source.
Damn.... I just learned more about the 8-track player in the past 3 days participating in the comments of this video than any other video or article or whatever on the internet in my entire life. And I was just watching the movie "Stoned Age" and one of the guys in the movie was like "your tape player ate my tape man" and it was an 8-track that got chewed up. Lol.
TBH I wouldn't put Laserdiscs or 8-tracks as "biggest failures" or even "failures" on this list. 8-tracks filled a market void for many years, back when cassette tapes in cars just weren't feasible yet, while Laserdisc was never really a competitor to VHS (due to it being a non-recordable medium). LDs had competing video-disc solutions though, like RCA's CED (which I would call a market failure). Laserdisc tech also paved the way for CDs to happen and things that we took for granted on DVDs (subtitles, multiple audio tracks, commentary tracks, chapters, digital audio track, surround sound) all appeared first on LDs.
LD started out with better resolution, less noise on the (analog)sound. Then the added Digital (Optical) sound. Because the resolution was better, Letterboxing allowed for the true Widescreen presentation on standard 4:3 displays. (I watched ET on VHS before the LD edition was out. The opening scene lost so much in Pan and Scan.
8 tracks were a kinda failure . I believe it was developed by the inventor of the car stereo and Lear Jet . I had one not long after they were released . A couple years ago by then the audio cassette started to get popular and then even a year or so later the Walkman came out . Laserdiscs was THE format to watch video versions of movies . It's because of the Laserdisc that Hollywood started making letterbox videos of their movies along with the pan and scan videos on VHS tapes .
My LDs also I cherish because so much repertoire was available on them unavailable otherwise, even to now plus, being BIG for liner notes and whatnot. PLUS the more, now can be obtained for A TENTH of what they cost originally with compounded inflated dollars -- a collector's dream come-true.
Forgot to mention that some audiofiles also recorded on BETA AND VHS Hi-Fi VCRs. You could approach digital quality with these and record up to 6 hours per cartridge. Who needed expensive digital recorders?
With the 😮introduction of DBX and Dolby C noise reduction and improved recording heads, the compact cassette provided excellent sound at far lower costs than EL Cassettes and early digital recording formats.
You forgot the RCA Tape Cartridge, the CED Player, and the Muntz Stereo-Pak, but it was still a pretty thorough look at failed formats. 🙂
Today, there are very few reasonably priced CD players unless you want an inexpensive Blu-Ray or DVD player. Most made today are targeted to the high-end audio market or the pro audio market. To access 2-channel audio on CD from a Blu-Ray player now, you have to use either the HDMI output or the SPDIF output (coax or optical depending on the player) and connect the output to a digital to analog converter which by definition convert the digital to analog if you have an older system with only analog inputs. If you have a more modern home theater system, use the HDMI output and plug it into an HDMI input on the receiver, and then go out of the receiver to your TV. If you have one of those UHD 4K disc players or Atmos/DTS:X compatible standard Blu-Ray player, you will want to use the eARC ports on the TV and the receiver. If the Sony Blu-Ray players are the BDP-S6700 up to the 4K UHD models, for the most part, they have SACD playback and if you have to use the digital coax output on these Sony's, it will downconvert the DSD on the SACD layer of a hybrid and a single layer SACD to a linear high resolution PCM which converts the signal to analog so that you can hear the music but for the SACD 5.1, you have to use the HDMI output and plug it into the HDMI input on a modern receiver otherwise, use an HDMI audio extractor that converts the HDMI output to the 5.1 analog connections used on AV receivers from the time SACD and DVD-A were introduced. The BDP-X800 players also play DVD-A as well as CD, SACD, DVD, Blu-Ray, 4K UHD discs, etc.
Some of the high-end players are really CD transports which require a DAC to make them have sound.
RCAs CED Sounded The Death Knell for That Company😢
I have a bit of a different take on VHS vs. Betamax.
Betamax quality was far superior to the VHS and Sony would have dominated the market with it. But therein lies the problem with competition. When JVC invented the VHS, Sony had no choice but to admit defeat because VHS was cheaper to manufacture and had longer recording times. They simplified the mechdnism and the VCRs were much less expensive as well.
From a business standpoint the VHS mafe nuch more sense. From a quality standpoint, Betamax was one the highest quality formats on the market in the 80s and the higher costs of the VCRs and tapes reflected that.
Sony fought to keep the format and they did well into the 90s fkr those who wanted a higher quality format.
But it wasn't Sony's choice. They were foeced to make the inferior format if they wanted to survive.
Laserdiscs were quite popular in Japan - and with cinema enthusiasts in the US - using expensive projectors. And MiniDisc was extremely popular with street journalists/field teams to record interviews with people. Small device, high capacity, and a way successful audio quality for voice and report snippets.
I had 3 Sony Mini Disc decks, as well as a player / recorder in my car. I really loved that format. I could carry my entire CD collection in 1 briefcase in my truck. I still have a home deck and several discs with music on them.
Laserdisc was truly one of the best formats that ever existed.
DAT was the ultimate format for studio quality sound in consumer stereo systems. The problem wasn't hugher costs in this case. It was commercial recording studios wanting control of accurate music reproduction and copyright claims.
DAT really wasn't a failure. It was the perfect format for musicians and producers to record their music onto the format and take it fo the studio and bring home the finished product in the same fornat.
Nowadays you just need a laptop with your music and project files on it and the only time you need a big studio is to get it mixed and mastered by a professional so it's ready for streaming and publishing.
As noted, Stereo 8 was not a failure. Several of its predecessors/contemporaries ultimately were, however. For example, the RCA Sound Tape Cartridge (1958-65), PlayTape (1966) and the Muntz Stereo-Pak 4-Track player (which was the direct predecessor of the Lear Jet 8-Track). The RCA SelectaVision video disc player was a competitor to Laser Disc and an even bigger failure. Also, the Polaroid Polavision video camera was DOA due to the introduction of VHS video cameras.
Elcaset failed mainly due to the sudden improvement in hi-fi cassette deck quality around the time it was released. Improvements in head manufacture and tape formulations including TDK's Super Avilyn tapes in the late 70s narrowed the gap sufficiently that very few normal human beings would be able to hear any advantage from using Elcaset. By 1981, Dolby C arrived on high-end cassette decks and was capable of giving better than expensive Type IV tape performance from relatively cheap Type I tapes using a technique called spectral skewing. Anyone who understood the advantages of Dolby C would likely have been using it for their own recordings as it improved transparency dramatically.
@@MrSlipstreemI like to equate Elcaset to DAT and 8-Track to the standard Cassette.
If Elcaset was released before the standard Cassette, Sony would have dominated the market the same way as Betamax would've been if JVC didn't come out with VHS.
I feel really bad because Sony invented some of the best formats only to be crushed by the competition that ultimately lead to their demise.
You can't really say that about Laserdisc because Pioneer had no competition for it and they dominated the format from the very beginning.
I'm sorry the minidisc end DCC formats didn't get the recognition they truly deserved and needed in the industry. If cost wasn't a factor, most people would have chosen the higher quality formats. But money rules and business is paramount. So whatever wins from a lower cost is what's going to rule the market and industry.
DCC could have been great. I would have loved to have had one except they cost a fortune. It wasn't that people were happy to put up with the crappy sound of cassettes, rather hi quality CDs were already everywhere by then so people were only using cassettes to record stuff. Cassettes especially Types II & lV were really good quality by the 90s and compared to a decent analogue deck, the cost of DCC was just astronomical. Analogue cassettes did the job well enough. In the end DCC disappeared and I finally got an MD recorder in 2001, but within 2 years CD burners were suddenly super cheap & everywhere.
Laserdiscs didnt end in 1997 but last movie was in 2001 and playersnwere made till December 2009. It wasnt popular but still had following and still does.
We are producing the worst sounding formats today that have ever existed. Recordings today are the worst sounding recordings in the history of audio. Computer distorted compressed crap. Car stereos today are the most horrific thing I've ever heard. Go back 40 years and listen to a cassette inside a car with a separate non class D amp and you will be beyond shocked of just how much tone it has and just how far we have fallen on sound quality today
Minidiscs should have stayed since they are great! I love this format and i still own and use them!
weren't they popular in Japan?
I wished they would have upgraded the format and created discs with even higher data density and faster writing times and longer life spans.
@@Latin00032 Huhh? I only record on them in stereo or mono. I'm not into this LP modes.
@@chadwichterman7572 my point is to say i would love to keep storage data on them while they are protected in a case.
A lot of these should never have been failures just stupid people who didn't enjoy them or gave them a chance! SMH!
actually the stereo 8 was called 8 track by everyone and it sounded better than cassettes but was bigger and had an irritating problem with the foam rotting away in cheap models making them unplayable...
I sometimes wonder why 8-track ("stereo 8") had such bad quality. From a technical perspective, the format had some design aspects that are superior to the Philips Compact Cassette: The tape ran at 2x speed, so high-end frequency response should have been very good. And while it does need to fit 2x as many tracks... the tape width is *almost* 2x as wide. So I'd say the track width could stay nearly the same... resulting in nearly the same SNR... if not better due to the tape speed increase! People also joke that 8-track players "knock their head out of alignment 4 times per playback", but this didn't have to be the case; Fostex made 8-track open-reel-to-reel decks that used 6.35mm (1/4") tape, so precision fixed heads with 8 coils existed! These could have been used for 8-track Cartridge players too, with a fully electrical "program change", no mechanical head-jostling necessary. There's also no technical reasons why CrO2 and metal tape formulations and Dolby NR -- the things that improved cassette fidelity -- couldn't have been introduced to 8-track Cartridges too. The quality would have been phenomenal, better than Compact Cassette's achievements! The ONLY thing I can possibly think of that could MAYBE be detrimental to sound quality but inevitable in the 8-track format, is if the tape has a problem with its dry-lubricant coming off the backside and contaminating the oxide coating and playback head. Other than that... There's no reason why they should have sounded lousy.
I have 8 tracks that sound relatively good, and I have 8 tracks that sound lousy, with lots of gradations in between. It depends a lot on the quality of the duplication. It's the potentially bad aspect of any pre-recorded tape no matter the format. With a good recorder and source, people could often make better sounding tapes at home vs what they could buy in the store.
I agree. On paper 8-track should have been a better format. My theory is the tape formulation itself. When cassettes first took over they didn't sound much better. They were just smaller and had more convenient functions such as rewind and fast forward which we could not do with the good ol 8-track. But after they took over, as time went along, they came up with better tape formulations. If 8-tracks lasted longer and used the same tape formulation as cassettes I think maybe they would have sounded a hell of a lot better. I live above a vintage record store and bought a bunch of 8-tracks from there. And got a Pioneer player off Ebay to hook up to my stereo. It's a quality player that just needed a little love and it sounds decent with some of the tapes. Not the best but decent. I just bought it for something to collect really.
I think lack of development was a major contributing factor. When you consider that Dolby C arrived on a few high-end cassette decks in 1981 and was capable of giving better than Type IV tape performance from Type I tapes due to its spectral skewing technique, no other existing domestic tape format could compete without similar development. I have two 1990s cassette decks here that, when using Dolby C, have an overall frequency response of 20Hz to 20kHz within 1dB and a signal-to-noise ratio approaching 80dB with a cheap TDK FE Type I tape, so that shows how far the compact cassette came from its early days as a portable mono dictation machine.
When you consider that very similar performance to this was available from cassette decks as early as 1981 if your pockets were deep enough, then on a multitude of hi-fi cassette decks from the mid 80s on, there really would have been no point in developing 8-track to this point anyway as it would likely have been audibly indistinguishable from cassette whilst still having the drawbacks associated with a bulky uni-directional cartridge system. Compact cassette as a format was capable of being SO much better than most people remember, largely due to the enormous number of cassette decks on the market that were totally incapable of doing the format justice.
@@teddine7366 If memory serves, Maxell XL-II tape stock may have been available in 1/4" by the late 70s. I used it all the time on an open-reel deck in the early 80s and it performed very well down at 3 3/4 IPS. Recordings from a hi-fi FM stereo receiver sounded identical to my young ears at the time, so it must have been close to flat up to at least 15kHz and tape hiss was below the level of the source. That was on a stereo half-track deck though. I have no idea how well it would have performed with 8 narrow tracks. Many cassette decks can record beyond 20kHz with the same formulation at 1 7/8 IPS. Used with Dolby C, the signal-to-noise ratio can be very close to 80dB.
I think 8 track sounds better than most cassettes.
A ELP didn't cost $3K...more like $15K!
right
They were called Stereo 8 CARTRIDGES not cassettes or just 8 Track Tapes.
Formally, yes. I don't recall any layman in the UK ever calling them anything other than 8-track cartridges.
@@MrSlipstreem Same.... and I'm in the U.S.
Compact Cassettes were not that bad, as you have mentioned. After all, I have recorded very high-quality music on cassettes, which offers a better dynamic range than the recent mp3 music files!
Eventually, everything becomes obsolete.
This is a fact but, we still love what we did and do-still.
My white-wax collection of cylinders from before the
turn of the nineteenth century, I shall always cherish.
Getting rid of 3D is a bunch of whining people who decided that nobody should have it. There are a lot of people who really want it and think it’s fun. Let the people who don’t want it not buy it. The Electric car was tried many years ago and failed, now they try and shove them down everyone’s throats. Freaking country has been hit hard with this crap
The Philips lenticular 3D TV system was quite spectacular if you got to see it in person. No special glasses required.
@ I had the LG EC9300 and it had passive 3D. Man it was so much fun to be able to watch 3D on an Oled TV, unfortunately it got burn in. But currently my wife was so kind to allow me to put a 132” ALR screen with the AWOL 3500 ultra short throw projector, when I had that lg Ec 9300 I had bought almost every 3D movie, it sucked not being able to watch them for so long. I want all Godzilla movies and every single film they can make to have a 3D version, except I don’t want any of these woke garbage movies that they’ve come out with. Boy hollyweird has truly become awful
Good, nostalgic video
unfortunately, they took away all the media we could record on, recording a compact cassette was a real little ritual
DVD-Audio was missed. Man that was an incredible sounding medium that was way too complicated for the regular public. It had a format war with Sony too, SACD. Both failed and both had incredible sound quality.
You’re absolutely right! I agree. I didn’t mention DVD-Audio and SACD because l don’t consider them to failures:)
@@multimedium_channel_en they will always be a sore spot for me, they should have taken off because the audio quality was as good as it could possibly be.
@@multimedium_channel_en Blu-ray audio is a real ear opener. I have the Dolby Atmos mix of Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon. I've never heard anything like it!
@@multimedium_channel_en I still keep about 50 pcs of each and 4 players . Decoding dac is important .
@@multimedium_channel_en High end audiophile labels, the Japanese market, the hi-fi Hong Kong market and the classical world still release music on SACD to this day with most titles being remasters of old jazz, blues, classical (as I have mentioned) and classic rock/pop music known for high fidelity sound.
Before the end of the century Sony make Dolby S. Audio magazine try to compare Dolby S with DAT DCC or with DAT. I'm not really sure of clear winner. Do you?
Would you do a video about 3 3/4 speed cassette decks
And now a want a laser record player. I am bummed I can't get one and it never came out. Well, I still need to get my hands on one of those elusive linear tracking record players. I gave your channel a subscribe and a like by the way.
The ELP LT-1XA laser turntable was available for a short while. It was incredibly expensive and performance was diabolically awful compared to using a conventional diamond stylus.
I really embraced minidisc in the late 90s / early 2000s. I only lost interest when MP3 players became popular.
Phillips marketed a video cartridge recorder/player in about '76 or '77. I worked at a distributor that sold them. Absolute junk. I have disliked Phillips products ever since. (It might have had the brand name NORELCO on the product, I don't remember for sure.)
I grew up with CDs in the late 90s and early 2000s they sound grood of course, cassette tapes are generally horrible. However, the earily Bluetooth and compressed sound of new TVs is equally as bad it's gotten better tho. I recently got a Zenith 8 track player and a case of 8 tracks. 8 tracks sound great. I heard 8 tracks had better quality than most cassette tapes and I believe that. 8 tracks spin faster and blows cassette out the water except maybe the latest high end sony cassettes.
Just as it is today, very few a interested in quality. We strive for years to get Hi-Fi, top quality sound and vision and what do people listen music on now Smart speakers that are not even stereo and earbuds. True Quadro was the thing they should have stuck to.
Warner/Rhino and also the Dutton Vocalion audiophile label in the UK are big on remastering old quad recordings for Blu-Ray Audio discs in the case of Warner/Rhino in their Quadio series and SACD in the case of Dutton Vocalion. Audio Fidelity during the end of their time issued some quad mixes on SACD as well, targeting the audiophile.
DAT, DCC, and MiniDisc had something else - copy protection - that hurt them. If users could have made lossless mix tapes from tracks from CDs, they might have been a success. Also, Laserdisc was far more successful that RCA's stupid videodisc format that was played with a stylus. I'd consider RCA's videodisc format far more of a failure than Laserdisc.
I had a Betamax player
I live in Jamaica we never have these till 2000
I am from Eastern Europe, and we also never had these) But I’m lucky, I used to be a journalist, so I had opportunity to see some interesting products. When I came to Western Europe for the first time I was crazy about all those products in stores… In 2007 I lived in USA, and I was shocked how easy someone can get any new product from HiFi market ))
You forgot this two sides cassette : en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_2000 from 1979 to 1988
Right)
I was sad that Philips lost the video format wars. Early VHS machines looked awful on UK PAL 625-line TVs. V2000 wasn't broadcast quality either, but it got a lot closer than VHS did at the time. Plus it had loads of amazing features including automatic dynamic tracking as standard from day one, perfect freeze frame and perfect picture search. I still have one fully working 1983 Philips V2000 machine and another near-identical Pye model for spares.
alot of the formats went to pro gear like vhs to adat betamax to betacam dat the data ones theres tons of data back up that could be re used some how
the thing scsi data can be a right pain i have some akai DD8 units that take dds 4 drives right pain to jazz a round with
like the yamaha D24 decks they are ace have some 5 1/2 mo drives are bad news best to keep away from
Lolilololololol curved tv’s.
know about nearly all of the products due to videos by Techmoan and VWestlife among others cannot remember their handle on here
Most audio is a scam.
What does that even mean?
This comment bothers me.
I'm an audiophile
@@Dexter649 I think maybe they just picked a comment from a hat and posted it. It doesn't mean anything.
However, it did remind me of the two things that don't lie, be we audiophiles or not-- our ears. They always should have the final say about what sounds good.