The story of the 4-Track Cart
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- Опубліковано 23 лис 2024
- Before the 8-Track, came the 4-Track.
Here’s the story of the creation, the short life and the quick death of this pioneering cart.
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I really appreciate the love and care you give to these old formats. There really is something magical about getting an old piece of machinery working again.
That magic is that getting it working again is possible. Once we got into ICs and adhesive assembly all bets were off
51 minutes of all content and no fluff. The background work that would’ve gone into researching all of this is impressive. What a great story told by a great storyteller. And the repair job was a bonus. It’s also great to see the rest of the comments. It seems many others feel the same way.
100% peak techmoan, terrific video. Obscure format, check. Detailed and fascinating history, check. Player repair, check. Successful working player at end, check. Loving this guy Muntz.
Thank goodness you finally reported on this. When i was young in the 70s, i found my brothers 4 track car player and tapes. I figured how to connect it to an old car battery and some speakers. Herman's Hermits had a great tape. I think i started my love for electronics, then.
Today, I'm an engineer for that company in Everett that makes the famous multimeters.
Surely that's just a Fluke?
🤣
How many brothers is that?
@@uriituwThat album by "Brothers for Track" called 'Frankenstein's apostrophe' is quite good.
@@caddelworth you stole my joke!!!
@@caddelworth i see what you did there.....
51 minutes? I do love a long Techmoan video! Time for a coffee I think!
Yes it's a bit long isn't it. I think UA-cam recommend 10-13 minutes max before people switch off 😉
Same. I do love longform on UA-cam especially when it's Techmoan. 🥳
The 4 track cart was only on the market for 30 minutes
@@philip_jamesNobody switches off a Techmoan video! 😇 😅
@@WatanabeNoTsuna.no they just fall asleep instead
Absolutely fascinating, an eccentric businessman, an obscure format, a beautiful old piece of electronics, some corporate intrigue, some old cars, and a cameo by Morecambe and Wise. What more could we ask for?
Earl made and lost a fortune several times during his lifetime. He was married 7 times and remained friends with all of his ex wives! He became a celebrity by virtue of his wacky advertising campaign and prominence of used car dealership ads.Sammy Davis,Frank Sinatra and John Wayne all had AutoStereos installed in their cars.
we should have a techmoan bingo card XD
I’m sick in bed this weekend and feeling pretty lousy. This Techmoan video has done wonders to lift my spirits. (Thank you, Mat!)
Get well soon
@ Thank you! (Mat’s easygoing attitude and pleasant personality really did wonders for my mood. The 51 minutes of his “visit” were the best 51 minutes I’ve felt all day.)
Hope you feel better soon :)
Get well soon!
Hopefully you aren't moaning.
VERY WELL DONE. A few extra tidbits: the US radio stations recorded the 4 track material on stereo reel to reel then hand cut the content for the carts. Very popular and the pinch rollers didnt slip. I worked as an ice cream truck driver in 1970 which used a 4 track for the torturous endless Bong a Wong tunes. I bought a few Elvis 4 tracks at a yard sale and would play that at concert volume over the horn speakers going down the road.
I had the very first Lear factory installed 8 track that Ford sold in a new car. 2 tape choices Mantovani or Rolling Stones "High Tide and Green Grass". You actually chose the title when you ordered the car! To this day I hate those 😂
And of course later I had Quadrophonic 8 tracks playing in my 1961 Ford Econoline van.
Man, you belong in a museum!
@Ibnfunk yes, I'm old lost history walking 😝. Those first 8 track car players were labeled Lear Jet. I knew Bill Lear's best friend. An old guy.....he said Mr Lear knicknamed the Jet "Old Man" after him.
While radio stations used Fidelipac aka NAB carts AKA Carts. Muntz 4 Track uses a Fidelipac with 4 tracks of audio at 3.75ips whereas NAB carts used by radio DJs had 2 tracks for stereo audio and a Cue track and were played at 7.5ips.
@@Techmoan ah, that makes sense! Thanx for the clarification. My brain used to know that. 😁
@@Techmoan Where those RCA jacks on the back of the mechanism?
This is what we come to Techmoan for.
I come for his awesome karaoke skills, but this is good too!
@JDelwynn Karaoke is the cancer that cast the blackness upon the lungs of humanity.
@@JDelwynn Sadly recordings of those are as rare as some of the formats Mat covers.
‘It turns out there’s not typex in the house because this is not the 1980s’. Matt, you are a national treasure.
I know you meant Tippex, but Typex was a British cipher machine developed for the war, and was essentially unbreakable. Old code and cipher machines would be an amazing side project for Techmoan!
You sir deserve to have a museum of technological developments and devices related to media established in your honor. I’ve learned more about various audio/visual products throughout recent history here on your channel than I had over my 65 years in my careers in radio and television. Bravo!
Actually, Matt should be the curator of the museum. Who else would know about all of this history?
There's a few bits of the Techmoan Collection at the "This Museum is not Obsolete" museum in Ramsgate.
I was thinking the exact same thing.
Matt is now for so many people the face that pops up in your mind when you think about "retro" tech. He is a legend, may he be around for many more years to come.
Actually that's a brilliant idea. A permanent museum of old audio tech as seen on Techmoan.
Brilliant. One of the first format wars essentially and I loved the stories of Muntz & Lear. Especially taken with Muntz, the boy clearly loved to sell stuff to consumers and his pragmatic pivot to multi-format players and labelling that the '12-track' just tickled me.
What an excellent video... thank you! And it's amazing that such an old machine is still working perfectly after only a few small repairs!
There needs to be documentary on this guy. He did so much and even when things go south and he gets screwed over he keeps on going. Who'd have ever guessed a used car salesmen could be so inspirational
I think it would make a great film.
I kind of thought we just watched a documentary about this guy.
A businessman who consistently innovated and tried to bring the best possible product to the consumer? Yeah, he definitely was a man of his time
There is a documentary, Madman Muntz: American Maverick (2005)
Instant Techmoan classic this one! A forgotten format, history revisited, perfect repair job that didn't drag on for too long, and I must say the editing was just perfect. Thank you for this very entertaining episode!
This episode was fantastic. The deep dive into the Muntz history was incredible. Keep up with the long format.
Your videos are usually one of the highpoints of my weekend. Being sick and not been outside in 19months now I thank you for making my weekends better...And I bet that there are a lot who has the same struggles but never comment but love your videos...
God bless and lots of love from Norway.
edit: I am sure there are more than me that your videos make a difference in the life of, so know that you are loved mr. Moan....
I like getting a regular Saturday Techmoan episode. Reminds me of watching BBC 2 science shows in the late 80s.
Except those were "Tomorrows World". Futurism isn't like it was in the past.
Love it, thanks for all the work you put into this
Those hand drawn PCB tracers always make me smile. Reminds me of when I started in electronics... and even just last week come to think of it. It's amazing what you can achieve with a blank PCB, a sharpie, and a bowl of ferric chloride.
I do really enjoy any time I spot those curvy, bendy traces
What an interesting story of the 4track cart, and what a terrific repair of the vintage player. Top video, Mat!
Possibly the best vid ever Mat. Well done. For me it had old 60s ads, a maverick salesman, the birth of a format, a nice little repair and a "this is what happened after" section topped off with a link to Eric & Ernie. Thank you, niche documentary making at its finest.
I hope Prince Rainie's wife Grace Kelly didn't drive her car off the cliff because she was struggling to get her darn 4-track to work properly! (Too soon?)
That look of puzzlement at the end was gold! Almost like you were questioning whether it was worth going to all that effort to fix up your 4-track player!
"I wouldn't categorize this as music, but rather as an experience... a really bad one"
-TechMoan [probably]
I LOVE these types of videos you do.
Thanks to you, I’ve learned so much of the many different and fascinating audio and visual formats; many so obscure, that I never knew existed.
Very informative video Mat.
Well done!
About 25 years ago, someone gave the radio station I was working for a huge box of Muntz carts... Of coarse, our machines wouldn't play them properly but it was fun looking through them. I must admit I didn't know much about the format back then and this vid has filled in all the gaps for me. Thank you! :)
Impressed with the sound quality of that thing, given the little box it was coming from.
I have three players and can conform the playback quality is surprising considering the age and the technology of that era.
I discovered 4-tracks by accident in the UK as I bought a car player and some tapes at a UK Car Boot Sale, at that time in the pre Internet Age it was nigh imposssible to find anything about them.
I note that there was a schematic diagram on the bottom of the case for ease of repair, sadly the days of being furnished with one when needed are now virtually long gone.
Yep, the days when everything had a schematic inside it... Even a pocket radio.
It's hard to believe that Apple, of glued shut, nanny knows best, no user serviceable parts inside fame, used to provide a complete schematic with their computers!
@@richardbanks2669 That was ever such a long time ago! It's usually possible to still find good documentation for Sony products.
I wish there was someone on UA-cam that would take an interest in the current state of device repairability. I wouldn't care if they were an activist, lobbyist, or just some 'man that happens to own a device repair shop.
@@Cookie-Dough-Dynamo there are many people like that. In particular there are a number of channels run by people who own or work in repair shops that discuss this in detail. I can furnish a list after work if need be, but searching "right to repair" should give decent results. Especially if you include the category you want such as electronics or tractors.
Thank you for featuring this.
I did it all, way after the fact.
But I did end up with about 30,
4 Track cartridges and some bigger format ones as well, used for longer programs. My player is essentially the older car unit (which your home player was derived from a later version of) which has the open deck and will take the larger sizes, much like the radio station or background music decks.
Mine is in a metal cabinet with the same peculiar labels for the controls. It simply has speaker outputs, and the original speakers were left likely simple wooden boxes such as came with earlier compact stereos. I also have a combo 4/8 car deck and a couple of other combo 4/8 home units from Mayfair of Japan.
One super interesting 4 track tape is Frank Zappa’s Lumpy Gravy
It’s the only release of the original version of lumpy gravy as there was a dispute with his label and the “lumpy gravy” released after is essentially a completely different album.
Before anyone says yes the posthumous release Lumpy Money has a version of the original lumpy gravy, but it’s a mono mix and the 4 track is in stereo
Thanks for this Matt. My father had a 4-track player in his 1968 HK Holden Monaro. As you probably know, the Holden was Australia's equivalent to your Vauxhall, both General Motors subsidiaries. I can't remember the player's brand, but it definitely wasn't a Muntz. I don't remember it having any problems either, but he did replace his cars quite often, much to my mother's eternal angst. Although my brothers and I were always mightily impressed.
And Vauxhall's equivalent in Europe was/is Opel. Probably an unfamiliar brand to australians since i understand you have a similar named company that makes electronics (not cars).
@@weismeister121 Opel is familiar as a car maker, especially since our Commodores were based on various Opel chassis from the get go. Strangely, I can't think of the electronics company with a similar name though. 🤔
@andrewbritten I saw that (opel electronics manufacturer) on an australian youtube channel (DankPods). I think it was either a phone or a type of MP3 player.
I thought I was the only one who remembered the 4 Track players. Thanks for reassuring me that my memory isn't all that bad.
I love when the videos are longer. This is the only channel I check weekly for new videos.
🎉😮This is a very worthwhile presentation by a very dedicated and talented technician. I had a 4-track player that I installed in my Corvair back in the day.
Great video! Longer than normal, but there's no such thing as having too much Techmoan!
@ 9:11 -- OK, Matt -- I must ask: How were you able to wait for Muntz and Muntz and Muntz and never open that package until now?
I don't remember seeing many 4-track players in the US. By the time I started driving it was overwhelmingly 8-track. A friend's family had a Ford with a 4-track but they never had any tapes for some reason. Another interesting and detailed video, thanks!
Your love and appreciation for the wide world of tech really shines through. I love these stories and the obvious care you put into these things.
Another OUTSTANDING restoration & historical flashback! I'm old enough to remember both the 4-track & the 8-track, as well as the big shift circa 1978 or so when cassettes shouldered 8-tracks aside.
A fantastic watch, Thank you. I do enjoy the longer videos that have the equipment, a bit of repair work and a bunch of historical context along the way.
There are still Muntz Audio Video shops here in Wisconsin. They work on car stereo systems and electronics. I had them install a remote start system in my car 15 years ago.
Been watching you for years, best channel on youtube!
A bit of a nostalgic history lesson with the classic Techmoan disassembly/reassembly of the 4 track player. A new belt to boot! Excellent!
I have to say I really dig that format. The way the unboxing, repair and demo of the player is split up with the historical parts is awesome, great pacing!
Quality video mate. I like how you mixed in all the history and trivia with the repair. A pleasure to watch, thank you.
Talk about an 'old school' video in an 'old school' format, (and I mean that as a high compliment). This is such a thorough and well-presented documentary on the subject. When I was growing up in Wichita, Kansas, I knew Bill Lear. My father was his attorney. He was a kind, elderly fellow who had really neat gadgets, (not to mention he invented the Lear Jet). We had a 4 track player in our car, that was, no-doubt, installed by Bill Lear's engineers. I thought I knew everything about Lear, both the jet and the tape player. I definitely learned quite a bit that I hadn't known. Thank you for doing excellent work.
I guessed all the upsides to the 4 track before you even explained it just from watching all your previous videos. You've been a great teacher!
Ah, long Techmoan video for my Saturday morning coffee. Nothing better!
Monaco resident here... will visit the museum with family next January. Will ask around.
"Bit of history, bit of repair, and some useless trivia." That's exactly why I'm coming here over and over again!!
I really like the way you configured this, story-wise. Interesting subject, done very well!
A truly classic Techmoan presentation.
Thanks for teaching me about all this old cool hifi that was already long gone when I was born. I have to admit learning about lazer disc and similar things from you has been a delight.
Thanks for the great history of the 4 trk player. I still have my muntz car 4 trk player and cartridges I bought in 1964 in Hawthorne ca , all chrome.
I used to visit the Muntz store in Van Nuys back in the 80s. They were selling those “projection TVs” that were just overdriven Sony Trinitrons. They also sold tons of Goldstar TVs, which is now known as LG. Speaking of which one day I saw Ron Howard in the store! Muntz and his kid Jim were always at the store. If you look at Google maps at the old location you’ll see it’s the same building just divided up into 4 smaller locations. Fun Fact: Todd London the TV producer used to work at the repair desk. He brought 2 of his buddies with him from the store when his dad filmed the pilot of “Hotel”.
19:55 I love the fact that you have a measuring tape that shows both metric and inches, but despite this being an American device, you try your hardest not to acknowledge that it is probably a 1/8" wide belt that is a foot long. 😂
I have to buy in metric from my belt supplier here in the UK.
Metric belts do not evaporate like that! I kid!
10:29 while I’m definitely too young to have been using audition booths where the machines were being fed by “tape bar girls in mini-skirts”, reading this article gave me throwback memories of going to a record store and listening to music before buying it - sometime in the last millennium
51 minutes of Techmoan is all I ask from my weekend. Thanks.
What a great video! Thank you. I was born in the UK in 67 and I remember being seven or eight years old and a couple of my friends’ dads had eight track players in their cars. I remember thinking that this seemed quite old-fashioned because the compact cassette was so much smaller. I also have a friend who had an old radiogram given to him by his parents and that had an eight track player in it, but he didn’t have any eight track tapes.
In the 70s, digging around my older brothers' cast-off electronic equipment, I became fascinated with an old tape deck that turned out to be a combination 4-track and 8-track car tape deck. It was branded "Automatic Radio" and I think it was made by Clarion. Though I had no 4-track carts, I was aware of the prior design, and the "AR" had all the right mechanisms for compatibility with both systems, in a compact, chrome player. It worked well and I listened to it for years. My father had a home stereo that would record 8-track tapes, so I made my own mix tapes of course. I know it was 1972 because I recorded off radio, a documentary on the 60th anniversary of the Titanic disaster, with interviews of many surviving passengers. When I watched your video, I wondered why all cars were wired with separate speakers for the tape player, rather than tying-in to the existing radio. But of course it was the '60s, and most cars had only mono AM or no radio at all. And music producers were into high-separation stereo techniques at the time so connecting to existing radio would have been a non-starter. Also, love that you said "here's my American Jackery"! ...Monty, Fort Worth, Texas.
The sound quality of that device is exceptionally good! I would have expected some speed instability, but not a unit with this clear flutterless sound. Great video, thank you very much.
Yes, that high quality built-in pinch roller works so much better than the cheap plastic ones built into 8-tracks that had only the cartridge itself to apply the pressure. I remember the 8-track in my parents' Monte Carlo would only work properly if you shoved a comb or something under the tape to keep it snug.
I get a 51 minute Techmoan video to watch while I get lunch? Christmas has come early
Brilliant video, Mat! Fascinating history, back story, and a repair and demonstration. Perfect. Really enjoyed watching this. Thank you!
A very satisfying watch, thanks for posting Matt
Very good video. Thanks for the little piece of history!
I was born in 1966 in France and the first stereos I can remember in cars were radios and then cassettes.
Yes they tried with 8-track in Europe, it was around for a few years in the 70s but cassette soon saw it off.
What a great video, probably the best researched UA-cam video I’ve ever seen
51mins on an obsolete format I will never see, own or come across? Hell yeah!! Love it!
46:30 - 'SIMULATED TV RECEPTION' - No kidding! Those early rear-projection TVs were notoriously lacking in contrast.
Where's the 'simulated head-of-hair' disclaimer? :)
Thanks for the longer video Matt. I really enjoyed the history lesson and seeing how it works.
Another great one Matt!
I remember 4 tracks ( I was quite young when 8 tracks were prominent). My first car had a cassette tape player I installed.
I do remember my older brother had an adaptor to play 4 track tapes in an 8 track player. Thanks for sharing this video.
Great video, I like how you split the repairs and history up throughout.
Thank you for this video, I love this format with history - repair - history - repair. I've been watching your videos every Saturday night in Australia for years
Great video! Like another viewer said, 51 minutes just flew by. So much faster than the bloody 5 hour rehearsal I was in before I was able to watch the 2nd half of the video!
A new belt and a bit of TLC and it comes back to life, as good as new - after nearly 60 years! Absolutely amazing. That player is older than my wife - perhaps I should try giving her a new belt and some TLC...
Saw a old school Bogen cassette Muzak landline telephone player today that was still in use! I immediately thought of you. I think technoan would have been quite impressed this thing is still carrying-on for as long as it has.
A lot of research on 4 & 8 track cartridge machines was put into 51 minutes. Matt, thank you for detailing all about the 4 track player system and the history of how it came about. My oldest brother bought a Sears 8 track player for his car back in the late 60's and it had the flip up pinch roller for playing the 4 track carts.
If there was ever a case for an endoscope or inspection camera, here it is. Could go through the cartridge slot and get a view of the insides. There are some very inexpensive ones that work with a smart phone.
He should ask DrainAddict 😅
It has been a Saturday morning ritual for me for years now to enjoy Techmoan and a cup of coffee on my day off.
The diagram glued to
the bottom of the case,
those were the days❗
That was really, really interesting. I think that Matt should now do a biography video on Mr. Earl Muntz 03/Jan/1914 to 21/June/1987.
Muntz was married 7 times.
Great, now i have to binge rewatch every Techmoan video on old audio formats..
Thank you for this lovely long form video! This kind of history is always fascinating the way you talk about it
I remember one time our family was visiting our cousins in the 1960s. My grandfather had given one of my cousins a 4-track player. He also gave her some prerecorded tapes including one Beatles tape. I thought that was very cool. A few years later I helped my dad install an 8-track player under the dash in our 1971 Plymouth station wagon. We listened to a lot of 8-tracks on long car trips. I always wondered what happened to the 4-track players.
Another excellent presentation...
About 10 years after your story, Clarion was a very high end car stereo company under their Audia line. The DTX(nnnn) had preamps in the head unit, 4 individual amplifiers, a diversity tuner in the FM section and a pass-though connector for dbxII playback. It used a motorized tape transport and billeted aluminum controls. (very nice!)
Edit: As of today most of those HiFi company brands are retired and sold to multinational companies putting out garbage equipment, Clarion, Blaupunkt, Infinity, Altec Lansing, etc.
One bit of film trivia. In the Coen Brothers film, "Barton Fink" the Serial Killer, played by John Goodman is referred to as "Mad Man Muntz".
Back in the 1990's I found a box of 4-track carts. I'd never heard of Stereo-pak before that, they just looked like 8-track tapes to me, but didn't do anything when inserted. I found breaking a toothpick to just a bit larger than the width of the cart, and Scotch taping it behind the magnetic tape worked well. Was able to listen to all the tapes that way. Even 8-track was before my time, but back in the 90s, thrift stores all had shelf after shelf full of 8-track players for $10 that month after month never seemed to move. I had bought a few over the years for use as cheap amplifiers and radios.
39:28 it’s like when Jim Sterling used to put music and gameplay footage from Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo all in one video and let the copyright bots duke it out over who gets the revenue 😂
That is beautifully engineered. It looks very nice inside.
History never stops, I love it
Superb video Mat, full of great trivia and practical segments! One of my favourite episodes.
Honest question: How do UA-cam channels survive(and make a living) doing reactions to full songs while a channel like this one is always trying to dodge copyright bots?
That was such an excellent and comprehensive video on the subject. Well done! Has everything from History to fixing up the player and cartridges. Awesome!! Lots of research went in and it shows.
"Quality rarely wins out over convenience"
4track vs 8track
Reel to reel vs cassette
Beta vs vhs
We had a rare exception with Cd/DVD's then Blu-ray on quality..
Now we are back to convenience with Streaming music and video lacking in the quality that is possible because of bandwidth and cost
I love Mat's longer videos.
Sega may have had an interest in rear projection television for its core industry - arcade machines. Big screen games draw in the punters and the cash to put in the machines.
A classic Techmoan video subject, and as a bonus we got to hear a cartridge work the second you popped it in for a happy ending. Thanks Mat!
The 8 track was my introduction to Dark Side of the Moon in the mid seventies!
Excellent history. I was born in 1958 and I vaguely remember Muntz, thank you for your work.
It looks like you're living your best life. Thanks for bringing me along for the ride.
awesome episode Matt. Love all the history you went into on this one; I find this stuff fascinating
To clarify, Tipp-Ex is a brand of correction fluid, analogous to "Wite-Out" in the US. Also, the word "Muntzing" came into use to mean reducing down (a television) to only the bare minimum of circuits needed to function (to bring down cost).
Thanks for the clarification!
Oh it's THAT Muntz! Used to remove capacitors and start the TV until the TV no longer ran. Then he'd put the last capacitor removed back in and sell it like that!
That's something that's always bothered me about using brand names to describe things - they often don't translate for international audiences. There's a US-based UA-cam channel I watch that makes constant references to Simple Green, but I have no idea what that actually is, even after looking it up to find out what a UK equivalent might be.
@Zeem4 I'm from the US and I don't know what it is. 😆
@@draketungsten74Same, wtf is simple green?