40 years ago today, This disc arrived at my college dorm. Journeys 'ESCAPE'. Booklet printed in both English and Japanese. My life was never the same....
(1982-08-17) 1st CD Manufactured
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40 years ago today, This disc arrived at my college dorm. Journeys 'ESCAPE'. Booklet printed in both English and Japanese. My life was never the same....
OK, that's really interesting. I too bought my first CD player from the Sony Store in Detroit...the CDP-101. I paid extra to get the wood cabinet. I still have it. The last time I used it probably like about 38 years ago, it would start and play for a few seconds and stop working...last I knew it still does that today. Currently it sits under the bed.
Like you my first CD was a Japanese import Asia-Asia I think a pressing from 1982. Didn't have a player at that time and didn't till around I think June of 1983. Drove from Flint to Detroit to buy it and it was about $1000. I may have been one of the first in the Flint area to own a CD player! I have no way of knowing though.
It was so exciting to me, I even kept a list of the first CDs I purchased, when, how much I paid and sometimes the total even with tax. It would be cool to say that someday I knew I'd be able to use that list for something (like posting it to a thread on the internet) but of course things like this didn't exist then, but I did think I knew in reality I would be interested to have a written record to my future self to know how much I paid, when and for what titles. I figured one day CDs would be less expensive like records at the time...and they are, and here's the written proof! Of course today some are less, cost about the same and some even more.
In reality, they are much cheaper today! That Asia-Asia import I bought on March 18th 1983 cost $24.95 (without tax.) In today's dollars (according to the inflation calculator) that same item today would cost $75.36! So yea, we were paying a fortune for those early CDs.
About two or three of those titles were purchased from the Sony Store. At the time they only had a selection of about 10 titles (more or less.) Of course over time CDs would be available to purchase from regular record stores.
(Glad I saved the list!) In three days, that very first CD I bought will be 40 years old! Of course I still have it.
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Hard for me to understand. 
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/202...ke-cds-for-the-first-time-since-the-late-80s/
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/202...ke-cds-for-the-first-time-since-the-late-80s/
Edit: so it seems there are several things that always goes wonky on the forum when I try to work from my phone. Like simple C&P. Here's the link I meant to be outside mkt's post:
https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/forums/threads/sales-revenue-from-vinyl-outstrips-cd.31080/
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Hard for me to understand.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/202...ke-cds-for-the-first-time-since-the-late-80s/
Seems pretty straight forward to me. What question do you have about the article? Or is it you simply don't understand why sales of vinyl have overtaken CDs for the first time since 1987?
Personally I don't think it's people like you and me who have lived during the real vinyl days...having to clean the record, the stylus, put up with static electricity on the records themselves, record/surface noise, ticks/pops, limited dynamic range, wearing down of the recording simply by playing the record, wow/flutter; feedback at loud listening levels etc. It's mostly younger people who I think have a nostalgia for these things. They like the bigger jacket, bigger pictures, bigger linear notes and the time it takes to sit down and actually listen to the album. They buy them for collectability reasons; not convenience and they're paying more for these pressings. It's all good...let them.
It's funny to me, most of the sources for these analog records are digital sources...even the new tapes to be played back for some of these high end reel to reel machines use digital sources.
Well I see a connection between your statement & anime "cells". If you are into anime, or animation in general, one of the most coveted collectibles is a cell. That is an individual piece of plastic that has the hand drawn image of a single frame of animation. First time I held one I realized, WOW! Not only is it hand drawn but drawn in reverse on the back side of the plastic!
Anyways almost all of animation today is CG & in the world of anime we now have "CG Originals". Laser printed on plastic of computer origin. Seems a lot like digital audio being put on analog plastic.
Being the QQ forum, I have to ask - when the first time you tried playing a CD through a decoder to create fake (or maybe real if the CD happened to be matrix quad encoded) surround sound?
For me, it would have been in the Spring of 1991 when I bought 4 (low end) speakers to use with my 2 stereo receivers and my home built matrix decoder, I don't recall the first CD I played through this setup, but from the Spring of 1991 onward, I listened to everything in fake surround sound.
Kirk Bayne
For me, it would have been in the Spring of 1991 when I bought 4 (low end) speakers to use with my 2 stereo receivers and my home built matrix decoder, I don't recall the first CD I played through this setup, but from the Spring of 1991 onward, I listened to everything in fake surround sound.
Kirk Bayne
kap'n krunch
2K Club - QQ Super Nova
Ted Gioia mentioned that about 50% of the people who buy vinyl do NOT have a turntable!
Owen Smith
2K Club - QQ Super Nova
My nephew being one of them. He has a display thing hung on the wall that takes 4 LPs and he slides in which ones he wants to see the artwork of on his wall.
I added a CD/LD player to my system sometime in the 1990s, IIRC. I could route all of my audio through my Sony SQD1000, so I usually did. Including FM, TV from the cable box, vinyl, and the occasional AM (mono, of course).
Well like I said, for collectability and nostalgia reasons. They don't have to open it since they can listen to it among the tens of thousands other downloads they have.
Interesting question. I have one CD that is encoded for surround audio but only tried to listen to it that way once. Today my setup and speakers are much better and actually would be worth the time to give it another try. Even the decoder is better. Since the decoder used is Dolby ProLogic, I'm sure it will fill out the audio to a 5.1 result possibly being slightly different than what it was really intended to be.
Right from day one. I always play all stereo through a decoder! I don't consider it to be fake either, enhanced is a better term the stereo is just spread out!
My Oppo 105 has a setting where it sends stereo signals to the back channels, and I am using that. I find it enjoyable, but no doubt there are people who consider themselves purists who wouldn’t do that.
This has been a great thread, reading about everyone's experiences at the dawn of the digital (audio) age. Like @par4ken I also was determined to build a CD library before purchasing a CD player so I had a decent slection to listen to. HA! That didn't last long. I purchased only 3 CD-s before getting a player. I purchased all 3 at once being:
Thomas Dolby: Golden Age of Wireless
The Eurythmics: Sweet Dreams
Beatles: Abbey Road
Held on to them for about a month before caving in. Like @The Rang my first player was a Yamaha CD-X1. It was the brands 1st gen player. But Yamaha was not so quick out of the starting gate like Sony/Phillips/Magnavox & I thought some early tech concerns had been resolved by then, justifying a purchase.
I already had those CD's on LP & I knew they sounded good through my QS-D1 and Fosgate Tate 101A. The CD's blew me away with much greater low level detail not being obscured by record noise, The transient peaks seemed more dynamic & crisp. I still think those discs sound great. Maybe it can be debated they were made from tapes made for LP cutting & therefore has weakness. But they were also made before the loudness wars & still sound great today.
Then followed a couple years later by the Yamaha CD-X3 (remote control!!), a Toshiba, Denon, etc. I never fell for the cheapo Radio Shack player endorsed by Sam Tellig, who said it was the best CD player on earth if you coupled it with the Tice Digital Audio Clock. Ditto for green markers or audio bricks. Some things have so much snake oil in it even I can't swallow it.
Thomas Dolby: Golden Age of Wireless
The Eurythmics: Sweet Dreams
Beatles: Abbey Road
Held on to them for about a month before caving in. Like @The Rang my first player was a Yamaha CD-X1. It was the brands 1st gen player. But Yamaha was not so quick out of the starting gate like Sony/Phillips/Magnavox & I thought some early tech concerns had been resolved by then, justifying a purchase.
I already had those CD's on LP & I knew they sounded good through my QS-D1 and Fosgate Tate 101A. The CD's blew me away with much greater low level detail not being obscured by record noise, The transient peaks seemed more dynamic & crisp. I still think those discs sound great. Maybe it can be debated they were made from tapes made for LP cutting & therefore has weakness. But they were also made before the loudness wars & still sound great today.
Then followed a couple years later by the Yamaha CD-X3 (remote control!!), a Toshiba, Denon, etc. I never fell for the cheapo Radio Shack player endorsed by Sam Tellig, who said it was the best CD player on earth if you coupled it with the Tice Digital Audio Clock. Ditto for green markers or audio bricks. Some things have so much snake oil in it even I can't swallow it.
Snake oil only goes good with popcorn while watching movies!
My 1st CD purchase happened kind of by accident - I was at the Audio Room stereo retailer in Cedar Rapids IA in 1983-03 and mentioned CDs, the salesman quickly brought out a cardboard box with maybe 10 different titles with 2 or 3 copies of each, The Nylon Curtain CD album was the only one I was interested in so it was the only one I bought.
Later in 1983, some comments (IIRC in Billboard mag) about the sound quality of this CD said that it was made from a master tape equalized for prerecorded cassette duplication, this early CD sounded ok to me when played on a variety of players (Magnavox CD, Pioneer LD/CD, Sony D-5 CD).
I did buy a remastered copy and also an enhanced remaster with "CD EXTRA" music videos, just playing the 40 year old original CD now, sounds good, plays fine.
Kirk Bayne
Later in 1983, some comments (IIRC in Billboard mag) about the sound quality of this CD said that it was made from a master tape equalized for prerecorded cassette duplication, this early CD sounded ok to me when played on a variety of players (Magnavox CD, Pioneer LD/CD, Sony D-5 CD).
I did buy a remastered copy and also an enhanced remaster with "CD EXTRA" music videos, just playing the 40 year old original CD now, sounds good, plays fine.
Kirk Bayne
I remember reading about the same thing...using sources meant for other types of media. I always thought what idiots, they simply didn't know or care about what they were doing.
Are you saying the original version from 40 years ago sounds as nice as the remastered ones?
inspclouseau
400 Club - QQ All-Star
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