Despite his early success, sales later declined and Muntz's creditors refused to provide further financing in 1954. Muntz admitted his business lost $1,457,000 from April to August 1953, (The company would be reorganized and last through the 1960s, but without its namesake at the helm.) However, Muntz's success continued in the sales of cars and general consumer electronics.
4-track cartridge Attempting to combine his two main product lines, cars and stereos, Muntz invented the Muntz Stereo-Pak
4-track tape cartridge. 4-track was the direct predecessor of the
Stereo 8 cartridge, also known as the 8-track, later developed by American inventor
Bill Lear. These units played special 16 rpm records or
45 rpm records, however they tended to skip whenever the vehicle hit a bump in the road, and attempts to alleviate this by increasing the pressure on the arm caused discs to wear out prematurely. The Autostereo player, which retailed from $129 in 1963 ($ in ) was a popular
aftermarket addition to cars among the
Beverly Hills rich and famous.
Frank Sinatra used one in his
Buick Riviera,
Dean Martin in his Corvette, and
Peter Lawford in his
Ghia.
James Garner,
Red Skelton, and
Lawrence Welk also used Autostereo players in their cars.
Barry Goldwater purchased one for his son, and
Jerry Lewis recorded his scripts onto Stereo-Pak cartridges to learn his lines while driving. Bill Lear distributed the Stereo-Pak in 1963, intending to install units in his
Learjet aircraft. However, he soon decided to re-engineer and customize the units to suit his own wishes, the result of which became the Stereo 8 system. In a 1979 interview in
The Videophile, Muntz revealed the biggest problem for the Stereo-Pak business was returned merchandise. He explained that when reproducing the work of major artists like
The Beatles, the Stereo-Pak plant had to make hundreds of thousands of cartridges. But once a popular album became less popular, retailers would return the unsold cartridges, expecting credit towards new titles. Muntz was unprepared for the returns and said the huge cost of unsold merchandise eventually made his Stereo-Pak business unprofitable. The receivers were built in Muntz's headquarters in
Van Nuys, California. Sony's U.S. sales division was unaware that Muntz was dealing directly with Sony's Tokyo
original equipment manufacturer (OEM) department, which shipped him the TV chassis directly. Thanks to Muntz's talent for mass-market advertising and self-promotion, by 1977 the projection receivers were a multimillion-dollar business. Muntz was quick to feature
Sony's
Betamax as well as
JVC's and
RCA's
VHS recorders in his store, setting up a showroom to demonstrate the potential for a "theater experience in the home". In 1979, Muntz decided to sell blank tapes and VCRs as
loss leaders to attract customers to his showroom, where he would then try to sell them his projection TV systems. His success continued through the early 1980s until he invested heavily in the
Technicolor Compact Video Cassette (CVC), a in (6 mm) system designed to compete with Betamax, VHS, and the
Super 8 film home-movie system. The CVC format failed in the marketplace, sales quickly eroded, and Muntz's store closed soon after. ==Later years==