For as long as I have been aware that Dolby 8-track machines exist I have wanted to have one. Earlier this week a when a wollensak 3M model 8075 showed up at a thrift near my home for the low low price of 7$ I snaped it up!
The electronics seem to still work properly, and after pulling some eaten tape remnants off of the capstan and tweaking the motor speed adjustment (it was running too fast
) it is now playing well, though I occaisionally have to jigle the cartridge to stop intermitant sound fading or wow that creeps in.
The belts are marginal and if I had anything that I could steal proper replacements off of with out loosing sleep I'd swap out the current belts. Are new replacement belts for reel to reel, 8-track, video cassete/disc players, etc even avaliable anymore?
Runing a google search brings up several pages that make the claim that it is "one of the best 8-track decks ever" and I have to agree that it is perhaps the best one I've owned. However I still have some questions that the long gone instruction manual probably could have answered. Such as what the heck is FM decode/listen suposed to be used for? And why does the motor stop when the "Dolby-off-FM decode" switch is in the FM decode position?
What are your thoughts and knowledge of this machine?
Tom C.