Sony CDP-101 and World's First CD

crooner

Tube Marantzed
Quite a combination. Sonically nothing to write home about, but historically significant!


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and here's the same Billy Joel title played on my MMF-5 turntable. Guess which one sounds better?

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Regards,
crooner
 
Yes, the Kyocera was quite something. I still have the original ad that appeared in early '82 on the audio mags. They claimed the unit was soon to be available in stores. It didn't happen until a year later in the US. By the time that ad came out, a lot of bugs needed to be fixed for the CD system to be successfuly lauched.

You could tell the CD-01 was an early design by the way it operates. It works and looks like a cassette deck of the day. The CDP-101 on the other hand, had a more radical design including the now ubiquitous front loading tray. Rumor has it, that Sony surprised everyone with this design since they were showing a front loading prototype in CES and other audio shows.

The CDP-101 employs the first 16 Bit DAC on a single chip. The digital signal was multiplexed for both channels in this DAC. A compromise, but it was the only one available at the time. Philips design was dual DAC but 14 bits in resolution. Philips was clever enough to implement 4X oversampling and digital filtering in their early chips. That gave them an edge over the Sony system that relied on expensive "brickwall" analog filters.

Elaborating more on the CDP-101's sound, playing the Billy Joel CD, I find the sound to be very bright. It could be a combination of the player's electronics and the early CD mastering. This Japanese CD, catalog 35DP-1 is the very first CD issued. It was also mastered using "emphasis", very common at the time.

The LP on the other hand, is very dark sounding. The extreme opposite of the CD!!! Both reproductions are not ideal, but I guess the LP would be more forgiving. I would say the SACD of this title kind of gives the best compromise, sonically.

Regards,
crooner
 
"I would say the SACD of this title kind of gives the best compromise, sonically."

I wouldn't bet the bank on it. Sony's SACD re-masters leave alot to be desired IMO. (I had one of those players BTW. Bought it in '83.)
 
Well... I have the SACD remaster of the title. Sounded good to me. At least it wasn't as bright as the original Sony.

In the early 90s I had the Sony Mastersound edition gold plated CD, that sounded good as well.

Even if mediocre, I am pretty sure the SACD remasters sound better than these first Sony CDs. The remastering hardware they used back in '82 was quite primitive, and because they most certainly were not using the first generation 2 track stereo master, they had to use "emphasis" as a digital sort of Dolby, to reduce tape hiss!
It's cool to have the first issued Sony CD title tho, and as a collectible pretty interesting too. It is also a testament to the longevity of CDs. 20+ years and still going strong!

Below is another shot of my modest vintage CD collection. Stacked there's the Hitachi DA-1000, Sanyo DAD-8 and Mitsubishi DP-101.


Best regards,
crooner


vintageCD.JPG
 
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I still have the very first CD player I bought: a Sony CDP-701ES

It was bult like a tank and if I remember correctly was one of their first with dual DAC's, but it's been a while since I looked at any of the literature. It's currently boxed in my closet with the original box, packing, remote, manual, etc. and in mint condition. Hmmm, maybe I should get off my lazy @SS and plug this thing in - it's been quite some time since I've heard it.
 
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