'On March 8, 1979, Philips, the Dutch consumer electronics company, unveiled a revolutionary new medium that would forever change the way we listen to music. The event took place in Eindhoven and was attended by press representatives from across Europe.'
https://www.dutchaudioclassics.nl/4...roduced-the-Compact-Disc-System-to-the-world/
I was born in 1974 and didn't experience the development of the compact disc system (though as a 10-year-old kid I was marveling at Philips' magnificent CD880 and CD960 CD players), but what an exiting period this must have been. All your LPs that you had to replace for those clinical silver discs. 😉
Are there people here who lived through the introduction? What did you guys think of the new system? Did you welcome it with open arms or were you skeptical?
https://www.dutchaudioclassics.nl/4...roduced-the-Compact-Disc-System-to-the-world/
I was born in 1974 and didn't experience the development of the compact disc system (though as a 10-year-old kid I was marveling at Philips' magnificent CD880 and CD960 CD players), but what an exiting period this must have been. All your LPs that you had to replace for those clinical silver discs. 😉
Are there people here who lived through the introduction? What did you guys think of the new system? Did you welcome it with open arms or were you skeptical?
I remember the introduction, however I didn't buy a player until 1988. It was a Denon DCD 600, with 2x oversampling and one D/A converter! I never looked back and it wasn't long before I never listened to my vinyl collection again.
Indeed I was sceptical about this new medium. Same as cowanaudio above, I bought my first CD player, a Denon DCD 1500, in 1988. Anyway, I noticed that even this highly praised gear (in those days) sounded comparatively harsh in the treble. So I never gave up neither my LP collection nor my Thorens TD 320 turntable that I had purchased just a few years before.
Best regards!
Best regards!
I lived in NY and was a reel to reel tape fan in my youth, tho eventually adopted LPs as there was a larger selection of music. While visiting my cousin in Seattle I checked out the Speakerlab showroom in 1987, and demoed all their speakers. The guy hit a button and fantastic music came out of the wall. i was expecting it to be a mid sized system, but it turned out it was their smallest offering with perhaps a 5" woofer, which was unheard of back then. I was agog when he told me. Then he mentioned it was partly because he was playing a CD. A what? No background noise at all. Tremendous dynamic range. Blew my mind. I left there with a pair of DAS4 kits (8" woofer, 3/4" dome tweeter) and as soon as I returned to NY went to Crazy Eddies and bought an ADS CD player.
I do remember the introduction of CD.
CDs were obviously superior to vinyl in every way. Finally bass and treble sounded like it does life but then in the mid 90's the Loudness Wars started and for 10 years CDs turned into poop.
CDs were obviously superior to vinyl in every way. Finally bass and treble sounded like it does life but then in the mid 90's the Loudness Wars started and for 10 years CDs turned into poop.
Heard the first individual one arriving to sweden. Bought almost one immediately and stopped playing vinyl. Later almost all my vinyl was stolen from my storage. Even if it didn't sound perfect, to be able to hear a piano key pressed and replayed without a hint of wow / flutter was to me a revelation.
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I remember reading up on some articles from early introduction (1981-1982-ish) and being very interested in the technology. Then I pulled the trigger on a Magnavox FD-3040 in spring of 1985. I enjoyed the sound from well produced discs, and stopped buying vinyl for about 30 years after that. I really enjoyed that machine and somewhat regret donating it to a charity many years ago.
I can remember it being covered on Tomorrows World on the BBC and thinking AT LAST, FREEDOM!!!! It was a long time ago, and it's easy to forget how big a deal it was and how much technology had to come together to make it possible...
It did a lot of people a lot of favours, that's for sure. I still like it. One regret I've always had is that nobody ever implemented the 4-channel capability that's built into the redbook format. That could have been very interesting.
I tried to embrace CD, but it's wasn't for me. Most of the early players were crap, same for many of the CD masterings. And this was long before the loundness wars. I have lots of CD's that I can't play, they are that bad. 🙁 These are mostly rock or pop titles. Pretty much all the jazz & classical titles sound good.
jeff
jeff
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Yes I remember it well. I had been reading about it's upcoming release for a couple of years before and couldn't wait to have tickless and popless sound playback. Got my first player a good one the first generation NAD player, paid $600. My first CD was Quincy Jones The Dude. A fantastic recorded CD and album. I was gob smacked and thought CD life was going to be wonderful. The second CD i bought was ABC band Look of love. A great album but sounded terrible. Tinny and no bass. I was quite disillusioned at that point, what with the perfect sound forever?? Anyway learned alot in the next 5-10 years of CD. I still kept all my albums in great shape and my CDs. I'm still very fond of Cds and the fact that there was no more pops.
I was working part time while in high school at a hifi shop. Before I had my first turntable, an entry level technics, I listen to the CD. They were shiny, small and very expensive, both media and players. Several years later I went to college and then I moved to CD only. And the MP3 displaced my CDs and then FLAC, streaming. Two years ago I fixed a sl1200 MK2 and I got vynil back. Last Christmas turned my Xbox into a CD player. And after 40 years I am back playing those small shiny discs
The local FM classical station promoted CDs with a segment featuring all-digital (DDD) recordings. Even over FM radio, I could hear the benefits of not using analog tape and records.
My first CD player (Yamaha CD-400) was a mixed bag. Some CDs sounded great while others sounded awful. Recording technology had to advance to make a 16-bit/44.1KHz downsample sound good.
Ed
My first CD player (Yamaha CD-400) was a mixed bag. Some CDs sounded great while others sounded awful. Recording technology had to advance to make a 16-bit/44.1KHz downsample sound good.
Ed
I didn't get to hear it until 83 or 84 sometime, At 19-20 I moved to Naples Florida in June of 1983 and got a job fixing TV's in a local shop C.B.S Electronics ( I did that for 4 years), Our shop was the Very First shop in all of the area to have one.
My boss Carl did sales and warranty work for Phillips and a few others, so Phillips sent us one to sell ( and he Bought that First one it was like $400-$450 😉 ), and once the word got out people Flock for Miles to our shop to hear this thing called CD!!
About a year later, a car audio shop just down the street got in the Brand New Alpine CD player system and had it setup complete with the Phillips Car stereo speaker, the ones that had 2 4-4.5 inch square Alu Drivers.
I had Never Ever heard anything like that before in my life and have yet to hear something that good in such a small package for cars eversince.
The First CD I heard on it was the new Yes 90125 CD (84ish) and WoW!!!!
Since then my desktop ESL is the only thing that tops this and CD suck !!
But at the time it was soooo amazing, and still is with the right system and material.
Right from the git go I always thought it made cymbals and such sound like trash can lids crashing together, but since then a lot of this has been solved by using 24bit data now and that is Good enough for me !!
I never did get my own 2 pair of those Phillips speakers like I wanted too, but they are what inspired me to build my desktop esl in the First Place !! 😀
Cheers everyone.........
What an Era that was and I was at the Right Place at the Right Time and I survived Naples for 20 years. He,he,he
jer 🙂
My boss Carl did sales and warranty work for Phillips and a few others, so Phillips sent us one to sell ( and he Bought that First one it was like $400-$450 😉 ), and once the word got out people Flock for Miles to our shop to hear this thing called CD!!
About a year later, a car audio shop just down the street got in the Brand New Alpine CD player system and had it setup complete with the Phillips Car stereo speaker, the ones that had 2 4-4.5 inch square Alu Drivers.
I had Never Ever heard anything like that before in my life and have yet to hear something that good in such a small package for cars eversince.
The First CD I heard on it was the new Yes 90125 CD (84ish) and WoW!!!!
Since then my desktop ESL is the only thing that tops this and CD suck !!
But at the time it was soooo amazing, and still is with the right system and material.
Right from the git go I always thought it made cymbals and such sound like trash can lids crashing together, but since then a lot of this has been solved by using 24bit data now and that is Good enough for me !!
I never did get my own 2 pair of those Phillips speakers like I wanted too, but they are what inspired me to build my desktop esl in the First Place !! 😀
Cheers everyone.........
What an Era that was and I was at the Right Place at the Right Time and I survived Naples for 20 years. He,he,he
jer 🙂
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A lot of the problems with sound in the early years of CD had to do with Engineers learning how to remix for CD.
That, and get used to different EQ settings. One of the reasons some early bird-scarers sounded ear-splitting is that they used masters intended for vinyl.
Ironically, the same vinyl masters sounded ear-splitting when played with a line-contact stylus. 😉
Ed
Ed
Hee, hee... Those 1980s recordings can peel the paint just as easily with my AT-440ML as with CDs. 😉
Ed
Ed