What could have been instead of CD?

[bigwill]

If I could go back in time I would've somehow changed the development of CD so that they used a Laserdisc sized media, and used the extra storage space to store 64FS 1-bit delta sigma audio much like SACD. Development might have taken longer but then you'd still have a nice big album with album art and much higher quality sound. A digital album would be a nice tactile object like vinyl.

Then all the annoyances of the CD format wouldn't exist.

[Jeb-D.]

Or they could have developed a more advanced Analog recording medium

It's probably wishful thinking. I just find it had to believe that analog only went as far as it did.

[bigwill]

That's also a fine idea. Why didn't they just make wider and faster cassettes?

[dnsey]

Why didn't they just make wider and faster cassettes?

They did!

Look!

[Steerpike]

As I unsdertand things, Philips did not initially intend the CD to be a very high fidelity medium to surplant the quality of an LP.
It was intended as a cheap, simple-to-operate, convenience format for mass market appeal, that would not be susceptible to the damage and hence crackle of records as played on cheap record players.

However, as things progressed, the 'cheap' part became an unobtainable goal, and so the target audience was redefined, while the actual format capabilities were not.

There is a story apparently concerning Ray Dolby, who looked at the inside of one of the multitrack PCM recorders, and pondered to himself what would you get if you put that much complexity into an analogue recorder; the result being Dolby SR.

If YOU hate CD, don't get me going on how much I hate DVD!

[Mooly]

It's always easy to say what if
CD at launch pushed the boundaries of what was technically/commercially viable. Why not have used a bit higher sampling rate. We couldn't 44.1khz was pushing it back then with the technology available at a reasonable price.
VHS --- why did folks want LP mode, why not a high speed mode for better quality.
El-cassette never caught on. People always want the cheapest, not the highest quality generally.
Try playing a 12 inch disc in the car

What was that about DVD ?

[poynton]

Much the same could be said about computer operating systems and the 640k memory limit - what if? ( Mac users laugh now!)

Andy

[Gopher]

Yeh and if **** was gold I'd be a millionaire, but it ain't.

[kevinkr]

Originally posted by Mooly
It's always easy to say what if
CD at launch pushed the boundaries of what was technically/commercially viable. Why not have used a bit higher sampling rate. We couldn't 44.1khz was pushing it back then with the technology available at a reasonable price.
VHS --- why did folks want LP mode, why not a high speed mode for better quality.
El-cassette never caught on. People always want the cheapest, not the highest quality generally.
Try playing a 12 inch disc in the car

What was that about DVD ?

Chrysler amongst others offered players for 45 rpm records in some U.S. models in the late 1950s and perhaps into the early 1960's.

Anecdotally I remember a taxi ride in an old Chevy ('57 or so) in Cypress in 1970, the cab driver had a 45 rpm slot fed record player mounted under the front dash.. Worked too, and did not skip on the bumpy road on which we were driving - can't imagine the tracking force required to pull that off. Music I think was Greek..

[kevinkr]

Originally posted by Mooly
It's always easy to say what if
CD at launch pushed the boundaries of what was technically/commercially viable. Why not have used a bit higher sampling rate. We couldn't 44.1khz was pushing it back then with the technology available at a reasonable price.
VHS --- why did folks want LP mode, why not a high speed mode for better quality.
El-cassette never caught on. People always want the cheapest, not the highest quality generally.
Try playing a 12 inch disc in the car

What was that about DVD ?

My first CD player acquired in early 1984 ($600) was a 14 bit, 176.4kHz OS Magnavox (Philips) it sounded pretty grim.. Lots of subsequent mods made it pretty listenable, but it was quickly outclassed. I will admit that when it died around 1998 I was a bit sad...