A Number of Short-Lived Audio Devices

Nowadays, a car navigation system is such an essential item, ranking right up there with lights and wipers, that it is hard to imagine choosing a car without one. When you think about how much they have contributed to the sales of car accessory shops over the last 30 years, it is clear that car navigation systems have become an indispensable part of automotive electronics.

However, more than 30 years ago, the most you could really do was spend money on a high-end audio system. The same goes for the popularization of prices. The first navigation set commercially released by audio manufacturer Pioneer had a separate LCD monitor and satellite receiver, and the total cost was nearly 500,000 yen. First of all, there was no way to find space in a two-seater Roadster to house multiple pieces of equipment that were twice the size of a 2DIN unit, so I had no choice but to give up.

Now, what about car audio before navigation systems? Can you remember CD players? MDs? The era of cassette decks? No, even before that, before cassette tapes became widespread, there was the era of 8-track cartridges. It was a music player that played cassettes (cartridges) about as thick as a DVD movie package, and some people might remember that this was the format used for karaoke tapes at their grandparents' house in the countryside...

Wanting to listen to your favorite music at your favorite place and at your favorite time while driving... The appearance of the 8-track car stereo happened to coincide with the time when radio stations began playing music in response to requests.

It is an automotive audio device that used 6mm wide open-reel magnetic tape, which was still in use at broadcasting stations until the Heisei era, connected in an endless loop for continuous playback. It was a single-rotor system that pulled the tape diagonally from near the core of the wound tape reel to have the magnetic surface read by the head. If you noticed that the circumference near the core of the take-up reel is different from the outer circumference where the tape is fed, you are sharp! In fact, the surface of the tape was specially treated to be slippery, allowing it to slide little by little to absorb this difference in circumference.

The reason there were 8 tracks was because the playing time was short; it used 4 channels with 2 tracks each for stereo, totaling 8 tracks. It was reasonably popular as an optional feature for new cars at the time, such as the Fairlady Z, but it was quickly replaced by the much smaller cassette tape.

When CDs appeared, auto-changers soon followed, extending the continuous playing time so much that you wouldn't finish listening even after driving the entire length of the Tomei and Meishin expressways. Then, after a short period of MD decks, came the arrival of USB and memory-based audio sources, and as communication environments improve, we will likely continue to shift toward a reliance on subscriptions. The situation changes almost every 10 years, and equipment from 20 years ago ends up being useless.

Car radios have also long been loved as an audio source. However, fine-tuning AM or FM radio waves can be difficult while driving. For those of you in a generation that doesn't know, old radios had a component called a variable capacitor that continuously changed the tuning frequency... or, to put it more simply, the operation was completed with just two dials: volume and tuning. Car radios usually had about five square buttons lined up, which are what we call preset station buttons today. When you pressed a button, the dial would instantly move to the pre-set frequency using magnetic force, allowing you to select a radio station with one touch. The preset method was to pull the preset button toward you at the position set by the dial, and then push it in at that spot. That was all there was to it.

Since the spread of synthesizer tuners using microprocessors, I haven't seen these buttons for a long time. By the time the number of FM stations audible in Tokyo increased, most car station selection had become electronic tuners without those black square buttons.

The mounting position for car radios and audio equipment is usually somewhere on the center console so that it can be operated by hand from either the left or right. However, there was a product that unexpectedly mounted the cassette deck tuner in the center of the roof. It allowed you to enjoy a cockpit feel, and the switches were neatly arranged in the position of an airplane's overhead console... It couldn't be installed at the same time as a sunroof, but it was a masterpiece that was more than enough to boost the mood. (National COCKPIT RM-700, etc.) It would be the perfect combination if installed in the flight-cockpit-style interior of a Cosmo Sport or Honda 1300 Coupe. Well, nowadays, that function could be achieved just by hanging a single LCD panel from the ceiling...

In the United States, where the commuting population by car is far greater than in Japan, not only are there many FM stations, but there is also a higher demand for podcast programs than in Japan, and the importance of audio content that can provide information while driving is recognized. The style of bringing in packages like we have done until now may eventually become mainstream as streaming via internet communication.

The large speaker sets ostentatiously placed on the tray behind the rear seats, and that hardware that boosted the atmosphere with a flight-cockpit style, will likely disappear behind LCD panels as nostalgic mementos...