Happy Birthday, Compact Disc!!

[Soundfield]

For a long time during its development at Phillips, the CD was in fact planned to be smaller: 10cm in diameter, for a duration of 60 minutes. Those engineers and their round numbers! Then, as the story goes, the CEO of Phillips asked if the longest Mozart symphony would fit on one CD. And so it had to be made larger at 12cm to fit 72 minutes of music.

Also it was Akio Morita, CEO of Sony. He was a serious classical fan and didn't like having to change discs for the Beethoven 9th.

Both of those are urban myths of course.

The CD standard was jointly developed by Sony and Philips. Philips proposed a 11.5 cm disc, while Sony wanted a 10 cm one. Philips' chief engineer Kees Immink is reported as saying that 12cm was the compromised size because it was a neutral size, neither Sony's nor Philips' preference.

Still a great format and after all these years of supposed decline, I can't remotely keep up with the continuous flood of new releases every week (in the classical genre anyway).
We discussed our first ever CDs in this previous thread:
https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/fo...-do-you-remember-your-first.25254/post-382839

 

[watsontr]

I've always thought that the CD was the perfect stereo format even though I loved to watch the reels turn 'round on my RTR. Just ordering a couple of soundtracks from the bay and will preorder Jimi Hendrix Songs For Groovy Children: The Fillmore East Concerts (5 CD Set)

 

[soundboy]

I've always thought that the CD was the perfect stereo format even though I loved to watch the reels turn 'round on my RTR. Just ordering a couple of soundtracks from the bay and will preorder Jimi Hendrix Songs For Groovy Children: The Fillmore East Concerts (5 CD Set)

I remember early CD players that load the disc vertically, like a cassette tape, that allow the user to see the disc spinning. I remember Technics had conventional drawer type CD players that allow users to see the CD spinning via a prism.

 

[timothyemerson]

I remember early CD players that load the disc vertically, like a cassette tape, that allow the user to see the disc spinning. I remember Technics had conventional drawer type CD players that allow users to see the CD spinning via a prism.

I had a Philips CD player with a vertical tray. It had a 5 band graphic equalizer too. Ah, thems were the days.

 

[kap'n krunch]

Oh, the great CD... if it hadn't been for it we wouldn't have gotten DVDs, SACDs, BluRays...and the format itself is still great, although the mighty 24bit resolution gave it its perfect lower place...

And, oh man.. all those poor bastards that either threw away or sold their LPs when these came out !!! something I NEVER did!!!!

 

[winopener]

And, oh man.. all those poor bastards that either threw away or sold their LPs when these came out !!! something I NEVER did!!!!

Been there done that and never regretted it. Only as a "temporary rich bastard" i could buy something like 130-140 cd in summer 89 'round the various Second Hand Records stores in London (probably the owner of the Notting Hill store still remember me after 30 years).

 

[watsontr]

I remember early CD players that load the disc vertically, like a cassette tape, that allow the user to see the disc spinning. I remember Technics had conventional drawer type CD players that allow users to see the CD spinning via a prism.

I still have a vertical playing TDK CD 2.1 player that my daughter left when she moved out. Virtually on its last legs and will soon need to be replaced but with what? Looking at what’s available for small scale casual listening seems most of the world has some horrid Bluetooth thing

 

[watsontr]

Jimi Hendrix Songs For Groovy Children: The Fillmore East Concerts (5 CD Set)

Linda, you’ll have to look into this. They say it’s the complete four nights of Band of Gypsys

 

[watsontr]

Happy Birthday, CD!! You're 37 years old.

On October 1, 1982, CD became available, for the first time, to consumers to purchase. Fifty titles were released by CBS/Sony of Japan; official introduction of CD in Europe and the US didn't come until 1983.

I think I was a late adopter as I seem to recall it was all very expensive back then and apparently, it was more important to pay bills and feed the children? Probably around ‘87 as my wife bought me Solitude Standing which I still love

 

[ssully]

Die Compact Disc....DIE ☠.... You've outlived your usefulness with your 16 bit 44.1 capacity in an age when 24 bits and more are the NEW standard and in an era where a comparable 5" disc can hold hours of LOSSLESS audio [BD~A] and 4K video you're woefully lagging behind.

And don't let the DRAWER hit you .... on the way OUT!

REQUIESCAT EN PACEM

Because....your room and gear are so quiet that a 24 bit vs dithered 16 bit delivery format makes an actual difference to your wonderous ears? Unlikely.

CD didn't die because of its sample rate or bit depth.

 

[ssully]

I remember being so excited that they were talking about digital music. No more cleaning albums, warped disk, scratches & pops, rumble, stylus changes etc great news and then I found out that this digital media still involved moving parts to read the media, Oh Nooooo. Moving parts caused so many problems with audio reproduction and not with just albums, tapes too... I was so disappointed! I thought we’d just stick a disk into a reader and get out audio. I started repairing CD players in ‘85. I thought people were crazy installing them into cars! The worst environment for delicate electronics. And there was soo much circuitry inside those players. I remember opening the Sony car CD players and having to pull out and unfold these plastic circuit boards that were folded back and forth like an accordion and had the fragile consistency of film negatives. This plastic would bake in hot cars and become brittle and stiff. The poor units would be full of dust and the laser head assemblies would get filthy.

Until the fairly recent availability of solid state drives, all consumer digital drives had moving parts ( a spinning disc, and a movable read head). The 'reader' you hoped for back then would have had them too. In fact, that's what you got, with a CD player.

 

[ssully]

I love CDs but my main concern today isn't the CD being no longer made. My main concern for CDs is the quality of the manufacturing and materials being used in making CDs these days. Recently I have had more problems with faulty CDs and Blurays than in the past 30+ years

Rip them to lossless files, which can be endlessly backed up, and your worries are over....unless there's an apocalypse that ends civilization as we know it, but by then you'd have much more to worry about than your music collection.

 

[ssully]

For a long time during its development at Phillips, the CD was in fact planned to be smaller: 10cm in diameter, for a duration of 60 minutes. Those engineers and their round numbers! Then, as the story goes, the CEO of Phillips asked if the longest Mozart symphony would fit on one CD. And so it had to be made larger at 12cm to fit 72 minutes of music.

That would be Beethoven's Ninth, not Mozart's Jupiter, it was supposedly the CEO of Sony, not Phillips, and it's an urban legend promoted by Phillips and disputed by Kees Emmink, the genius who pioneered CD ....and the 120mm disc information density (and therefore length of audio that could 'fit' on a standard CD) was actually *reduced* from allowing 97 min down to 74, in the final CD spec compared to the preliminary 1980 CD spec.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_disc

 

[SeeMoreDigital]

So I finally got around to purchasing Smoke That Cigarette (by various artists) and can confirm it's duration is: 87:32.986 (Call it: 87mins 33secs). And very nearly 884MB (in binary) when muxed into the .wav container.

It's the longest duration CD I own

 

[Chronic Quadraphonic]

I don’t believe that the CD format will ever die. People love them (me included) and they are largely indestructible. There will always be a resale market for many good performers and bands. Crap bands will end up in the landfill.

 

[humprof]

Plus, Gen Z has imbued it with retro-chic and eco-responsibility:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/2023/08/19/gen-z-collectors-love-the-cd/
https://inews.co.uk/culture/music/cd-collector-never-ditch-spotify-3313397

 

[Mr. Afternoon]

Plus, Gen Z has imbued it with retro-chic and eco-responsibility:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/2023/08/19/gen-z-collectors-love-the-cd/
https://inews.co.uk/culture/music/cd-collector-never-ditch-spotify-3313397

Imbued it with eco-responsibility...but not actually adopted it. Gen Z has adopted the vinyl record, overwhelmingly so (here's a study describing so). That's largely due to social media, hype vs actual enthusiasts (IMO).

Pros: More cheap CDs for me!
Cons: People think the scratchy sound is preferred.

 

[humprof]

Imbued it with eco-responsibility...but not actually adopted it. Gen Z has adopted the vinyl record, overwhelmingly so (here's a study describing so).

Pros: More cheap CDs for me!
Cons: People think the scratchy sound is preferred.

I think some of the younglings have actually gone over to CDs because vinyl is just too damn expensive (plus, vinyl releases of new titles often experience long delays, and I gather there are more and more complaints about inferior-quality vinyl).

 

[Mr. Afternoon]

I think some of the younglings have actually gone over to CDs because vinyl is just too damn expensive (plus, vinyl releases of new titles often experience long delays, and I gather there are more and more complaints about inferior-quality vinyl).

That's correct! However, the general brackets for Gen Z are like this:

Normal People (Spotify, YouTube) > Music Minded (Apple Music, Tidal) > Music Nerds (Vinyl) > Music Enthusiasts (Vinyl, CD, FLAC) > Audiophile Anonymous Members (Seeks out best mastering)
                                     ^Speaker Ownership starts here                ^I am here

The amount of people in each bracket gets progressively smaller.

 

[Asklia]

There is missing the last bracket with (quad)!