(1982-08-17) 1st CD Manufactured

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https://www.newsnationnow.com/business/tech/boom-or-bust-cds-first-manufactured-40-years-ago/^^^
Aug. 17, 2022, marks 40 years since the first compact disc (CD) was manufactured. Four decades ago, at a factory near Hanover in Germany, Royal Philips Electronics made a copy of “The Visitors” by ABBA.


I first saw/heard the CD at the 1981 SCES in Chicago - during the Philips demo, an audio journalist asked about the issue of "digital sound listener fatigue" - after translation, one of the Philips people said "just turn it off" - there was some laughter from the others at the demo and the audio journalist commented that Philips didn't really answer the question.

At least the stereo CD can carry matrix encoded content with minimal distortion [amplitude, phase, frequency], provided time aligned DACs are used [2 or 1 w/time delay compensation], the matrix encoded content can be reliably decoded.

One funny thing, some companies involved with the CD made comments to the effect of "a first in human history - optical discs for consumers" - seeming to forget that MCA DiscoVision/IBM/Pioneer Electronics had been manufacturing laser videodiscs since 1977.


edit: just now playing my 1st CD purchase (1983-03) - Billy Joel The Nylon Curtain (made for CBS by Sony) [fairly good surround sound w/DPL2 music], I didn't get a CD player until 1984-11, I also bought the prerecorded cassette of this album just to hear it.


Kirk Bayne
 
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My 1st CD player was a Magnavox(Philips) FD-3030, it has 2 14 bit DACs (time aligned) w/4x oversampling and noise shaping giving ~16 bit performance.

Although quad was at a very low point in 1982/83, I wanted a CD player w/time aligned outputs just in case matrix surround sound reappeared (on CDs).


Kirk Bayne
 


(from a post in radiodiscussions.com)

I'm still looking for the brochure I picked up in 1981, it stated something to the effect that discrete quadraphonic sound was an option in the CD format and could reawaken a big, new interest in quad sound.


Kirk Bayne


First of all, the video does show a proof of concept model that demoed at several fairs, along with other brands and incompatible systems, but specs were not yet defined as in the RedBook. You can see the disc is very different.
For quad cd, yes...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four-channel_Compact_Disc_Digital_Audio
 
AFAIK, the discrete quad CD would have used 4 channels of PCM (16bits/44.1kHz) format data and would spin twice as fast (1/2 the playing time).

I guess the big audio companies were still quite interested in quad in the early 1980s, IIRC, Philips had an SQ matrix license and was doing some discrete quad classical music recording for possible future release (and some Philips titles were released in CD-4 versions in Japan).

Maybe they thought that just one format for all mono/stereo/quad music would help bring quad back, anyway, it was quite a surprise to see quad mentioned in a 1981 brochure.


Kirk Bayne
 
My Pioneer VP-1000 LD player has an additional video output without the video dropout compensator, to be used for:

"VP-1000 is equipped with special output jacks for provision for a PCM adapter to decode the signal from soon-to-be available PCM (pulse code modulation) digital audio discs."

(just a few years later, CD format digital audio would be added to the LD format [NTSC & PAL])


Kirk Bayne
 
I remember the first time I actual saw a CD player in real life. It was 1988 I was in the Army "Sound Center" in Aschaffenburg Germany. In the Army back then home audio especially hi end audio gear was all the rage. I do not remember the brand now but it was a great price of $899 or $999 which was prob. $400 less than what it was priced at in any other retail setting.

I was a freshman in high school and I said to my best friend I guess I will be listening to cassettes and records for a long time!
 
My first CD player was in dash car head unit 1992 or 1993. It was a Pioneer in dash head unit with detachable face and the then new Super Tuner. I went off to college in 1993 and all my home audio gear was packed up and put in mom and dad's attic. I went to college 1400 miles away from my mom and dad. By the time I finished college you could get a portable CD player for $49 to $79 from someone like Sony, Aiwa, JVC which was more amazing than a $1400 CD player! People could get a CD player in a Sony Boom Box for $149. By the time I had kids you could get one in blister pack for under $24 or less.
 
I packed my turntable away in 1984-10 and didn't unpack it until 1988-08 (to play a 12" vinyl remix), I bought prerecorded cassettes and CDs only during that time.

My car didn't have a tape player, but I bought a Magnavox microcassette (stereo) recorder in ~1985 for use in my car, unfortunately, the bass from CDs was so loud that the automatic level control in the Magnavox recorder got confused and wouldn't make usable recordings.

I recently bought a Magnavox brand CD/radio boombox for ~$20.


Kirk Bayne
 
My first CD player was a Philips CD 101, which I purchased in late 1983/early 1984... It still works, even with (silver) CD-R's and some CD-RW discs :)

EDIT: I actually helped with the installation of some of the first CD display stands/racks around parts of England. The stands were pretty small because there were only around a 100 CD's available at launch.
 
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In 1983, I took a public speaking class in college. My presentation was explaining the CD and persuade the class that it would replace the album. I was right for awhile.

A couple of years later I worked in a record store and convinced the manager to expand the CD section and categorize the CD’s by artist instead of just alphabet letters.

Oh, by the way, does anyone want my CD collection for $1? LOL
 
My 1st CD player was a Magnavox(Philips) FD-3030, it has 2 14 bit DACs (time aligned) w/4x oversampling and noise shaping giving ~16 bit performance.

Although quad was at a very low point in 1982/83, I wanted a CD player w/time aligned outputs just in case matrix surround sound reappeared (on CDs).


Kirk Bayne
Matrixed surround sound never left us. It just changed from RM and SQ to Dolby Surround. I never noticed even a gap.
 
My first CD player was a Magnovox CDB-560 bought for me by my sweetie at the time Kelli for Christmas 1988 IIRC. Cost was somewhere around $200, the first one we could afford.
That Phillips deck was the basis for many HighEnd mod's back then.
The first CD I got was Dire Straits - Brothers In Arms.
Thank goodness Phillips-Sony held out for the 16/44.1 Redbook standard. There were some that wanted to go forward with lower resolution systems.

As the dead silent background and incredible inner detail played over my Klipsh La Scala's I can remember thinking "OMG this is awesome, how long will it take me to replace my entire LP collection"? It did take quite a few years but it's always been well worth the cost and journey to me.
CBD560.jpg
 
Interesting thread. My first CD player was an Akai that had an index reader. That feature has disappeared I think it was meant for long classical music movements so you could find a particular passage. Anyways I used it for several years than gave it to my brother when I got a Carver system (their CD player had a DTS feature Digital time lens you could activate to make the music sound warmer. I generally left it on). It was the coolest new thing.....
 


(from a post in radiodiscussions.com)

I'm still looking for the brochure I picked up in 1981, it stated something to the effect that discrete quadraphonic sound was an option in the CD format and could reawaken a big, new interest in quad sound.


Kirk Bayne

A former employer (they are all former these days) had a consultant give a talk on CD technology once, and he indicated that the red book spec (of course, unavailable to almost everybody) included the capability of four channels. He had never heard of quad records.
 
Although quad was at a very low point in 1982/83, I wanted a CD player w/time aligned outputs just in case matrix surround sound reappeared (on CDs).
There are a handful of CDs that are matrix encoded. From what I’ve read, if the record was only offered in quad (no stereo release) then the CD was probably made from the same master tape, and would have the left over encoding. TBH, I never really tried looking for any of those CDs, although a list (long since lost to me) existed.
 
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