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30 Years ago today the 1st CD released

GPJeff

GPJeff

Super Member
http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/28/tech/innovation/compact-disc-turns-30/index.html?hpt=hp_bn5
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(CNN) - Thirty years ago today, the music industry changed forever - thanks to those little discs. On October 1, 1982, the first commercial music compact disc was released. The album, Billy Joel's 52nd Street, went on sale that day in Japan.
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Fun Fact:
When Philips and Sony developed the compact disc format in the late 1970s, they specifically set its maximum length at 74 minutes to ensure that a single disc could hold all of Beethoven's 9th Symphony.
http://www.snopes.com/music/media/cdlength.asp
 
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Interesting.

The first I heard of the things was at a friend of a friend's place in northern Michigan. That was about the fall of 1984. I was fascinated with the glistening little discs.
 
oh, i was interested and waited until good sounding players had been identified. i ended up with an affordable magnavox that absolutely trounced my friend's technics player. mine imaged wonderfully and had better clarity. i will admit the technics had more formidable bass but thats where the goodness ended.

after hearing my player, that friend went on a witch hunt for a great sounding player. eventually he ended up with a NAD player that he used as the transport for the CAL Sigma tubed d/a. beautiful.
 
Bought my first, a Magnovox, around 1987 - my married daughter now has it. Only a couple years later I remember a local music shop selling record albums for a buck to get rid of them.
 
My first player was an LXI deck from '86. I still have it, though I need to clean/relube the drawer mechanism and replace the bulb backlighting the LCD display. I keep meaning to do so for nostalgia's sake.
 
It took me a while to adopt but the story is kind of funny. One of my friends is a Hindu priest with a wild streak. He did not have a CD player but bought Sir Mix-A-Lot's "Mac Daddy" CD anyhow. He wanted to hear the song "Swap Meet Louie" something terrible.

He gave me the CD provided that I would buy a CD player to play it on. That was the summer of 1992 and the rest is history.

http://youtu.be/2gZr6w82zAA
 
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i never dumped my records, thank BUDHA! as good as the cd-brothers in arms was/is, the dollar used LP i bought shortly after buying the cd sounded noticeably better.

i have thousands of LPs AND compact discs. i am keeping them all.
 
I also very much agree with this view.
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I have many of you beat. Got my 1st and only home CD player in '95.
It was a Rat Shack CD-3400. The original one from Japan, not the same-model-number replacement from China. I have no idea where it is, so the only place I can play my small pile of CDs is in my car, as it came with 6-disc in-dash player. Would replace it with a cassette deck, but the dash is moulded for an odd-size bad-sounding Blaupunkt.
 
NoTransistors, I'll bet you have a huge stack of cassettes that you recorded off vinyl to play in your previous cars. Probably some nice cassette travel cases as well. What deck do you use to record?

When new records started to become scarce I did knuckle under and buy a cheap PMG 8800E CD player in 1989 (no clue who/what PMG is) - which I still have and use - but didn't have a car CD player until buying a '93 SHO in 1998. Not counting the Sony Car Discman that I used with an FM modulator in my '76 GMC truck so I could play CD's through the Pioneer Supertuner in-dash AM/FM/8-track! The guy I finally sold that truck to a few years ago liked most of the 8-tracks I left for him in the glove box. Over half my cars now have CD, and over half have cassette (because one has both). One has HD radio and USB, another has CQUAM AM Stereo! Don't seem to be any AM stereo stations around here...

About a month ago I decided it was time to seriously upgrade my home CD (now that time seems to be running out on being able to buy a new CD-only player). The TEAC HD-P600 replaced a Denon DVD-2200 bought used for music only.

Still have all my old vinyl albums... and buying them again.
 
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A well-made, well-recorded cassette is analog and can sound extraordinary.
I do have cases-full of home-recorded cassettes. The collection began in 1976, and ended three years ago, with the sad demise of my Firebird. My Onkyo cassette deck has served me well, and as it is a replacement for the Sony deck, this newer unit has HX Pro, as well as B and C Dolby. Too late in evening to look for model #. The deck is all-metal and has no audible speed variations. No Nakamichi, but certainly a nice piece from a great manufacturer.
 
I remember Aug 1986, the album Graceland, Paul Simon was released on CD and not for sale on LP in my town. That was very annoying. Because I loved that album and more albums were not coming to town on LP I had to buy a cd player. I will always remember Graceland as my first cd.

I also kept the vinyl but gave away all the cassettes and reel to reel simply because two formats is enough for me. I did not want to play music on 4 different machines or formats. I guess if I go digital I will be up to three but for now it is just cd and LP.
 
1984 - My first CD player, a NAD 5200. First CD, Prince "Purple Rain"...!!! :saywhat::saywhat::saywhat:
 
I bought my first CD in the Tech Coop, in Kendall Sq (Cambridge,MA) in december 1986. It was this one:

MI0001045759.jpg


I still have it, and plays great. A month later I bought my first CDP, a BOTL Technics SL-P220:

2327-SL-P220.jpg


I sold my Technics in the 90's and never regret having done so. It was a very basic player, but one of the few ones I could afford at the time (it was sold for less than 200 $ ).
 
First CD I heard was Marshall Crenshaw's first release. Wiki says it was 1982-sounds about right. My friend worked at a "Hi Fi Buys" store, and he had the first player among my contemporaies. I can't recall the make/model. I do remember it had a flip up lid, and not the drawer loading style. I recall that only the 'better' CD players had a drawer, at the time.

Lacking a CD player of my own, I bought the LP (which, I am glad to say, I still have, along with every other LP I ever bought-well, a couple got ripped off......) :tears:

Took another couple of years to get my first CD player. It got ripped off too :tears:

My first love is LP's, but I will buy CD's, 8 tracks, or cassettes, to get what I like. If I can, down the road, I will rebuy the recording on LP, if I like it enough.
 
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