Audiophiles that rejected CD's when they first came out.

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Samson7, Apr 24, 2017.

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  1. Samson7

    Samson7 Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Pennsylvania
    Sorry if this is the wrong section for this question.

    I would like to hear from the folks that heard a CD for the first time and just shook their heads.

    I would also especially love to hear the opinions of any audio engineers, if there are any, that were a witness to the analog to digital transition and the reservations that they might have had but were powerless to do anything about because digital was inevitable.

    I have quite a few early classical digital recordings from the L'oiseau lyre label and they sound pretty bad. Thin and tinny.

    I would like to think that an audio engineer, audiophile back in the early 80's heard the end result of an early digital recording and thought "WTF?"
     
    Last edited: Apr 24, 2017
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  2. The Hole Got Fixed

    The Hole Got Fixed Owens, Poell, Saberi

    Location:
    Toronto
    I was in the business and had an early showing by Sony.
    I want to say 1979 but that could be off.
    We were mortified by how badly it sounded and convinced if AUDIOPHILES controlled sales it would bomb.
    I still find Redbook truly awful.
     
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  3. vonseux

    vonseux Re-channeled Stereo

    Location:
    Portugal
    I think it will be quite hard finding this
    The CD was a real success when launched, so much people got rid of e tire lps collections and adopted the new format fully

    Keep in mind that bad mastering, compression and loudness are the villain of 90s + music, not the CD format
     
  4. Did they play an "analog" source before or after on the same system in the same room?
    CD playback, original, worst problem was DAC's.
    Just weren't very good sonicly [musically].
    Later, even the 1st 24 bit DAC's didn't sound as good as the best 20 bit DAC's did.

    DAC's the problem!!!
    :laugh:
     
    Last edited: Apr 24, 2017
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  5. e.s.

    e.s. Forum Resident

    Location:
    United States
    Michael Fremer has written extensively about this, as he was opposed to CDs pretty much from the start. You can read more at his Analog Planet site.
     
  6. Daniel Plainview

    Daniel Plainview God's Lonely Man

    I didnt buy a CD until 1994 and thats only because Uncle Freddy gave me a CD player he didn't need anymore. So I'm pretty cool.
     
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  7. Hubert jan

    Hubert jan Forum Resident

    In 1987 I listened in a shop to an Elvis Presley CD. Awfull, electronically reprocessed stereo. That turned me away from CD's for 15 years.
    At last because of CD only releases I bought a CD player. Digital misses something, can't describe it, dead sound.
    Still the best sound, dynamic, natural and musical are my 78 and 45 mono Rock and Roll records and other 50-ties artists.
     
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  8. Off:
    "Electronically Reprocessed Stereo"
    That was a "mastering" blunder; not the CD format's fault.
    The same fake mastering was used on vinyl releases* as well; did it fix the 'problem'?!?!

    * RCA introduced the 1st 6 LSP Elvis LP's in January of '62; so the sound you blamed CD for was on vinyl for more than two decades before the 1st CD was even released.

    ======

    It's like blaming the original mastering of the 'Beatles Capital Boxes' on CD instead of 'Dexterphonic'!!
    :unhunh:
     
    Last edited: Apr 24, 2017
  9. James Glennon

    James Glennon Senior Member

    Location:
    Dublin, Ireland
    When CDs arrived I was one of the few who said not for me and to this day I don't have a CD player in my system. I was called...

    A dinosaur
    A Luddite
    An idiot

    I was laughed at for 'sticking'wth vinyl, accused of sticking my head in the sand.

    All these years later I am still only buying vinyl.

    JG
     
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  10. Samson7

    Samson7 Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Pennsylvania
    Good for you.
     
  11. scotto

    scotto Senior Member

    I worked in a record store from 1980-88, so was around for the early roll out of CDs.
    Physically, I hated everything about them: The packaging, the teeny-tiny print on the booklets, their smaller scale, the general overall plastic-ness.
    Sonically, I found them thin, brittle, cold, uninviting, unnatural-sounding--all the descriptive cliches we hear again and again. I bought a player and had a few discs, but only stuff that wasn't on LP. I never stopped buying records and always preferred buying and listening to vinyl.
    I haven't had a CD player in my system for probably 20 years. And, best of all, there's nothing I had on CD way back when that I needed to keep, 'cause now it's all on LP.
     
  12. seilerbird

    seilerbird Forum Resident

    Doug Sax was the first and loudest opponent of CDs. In the early 80s he wrote that "the man on street says CDs sound horrible."
     
  13. Samson7

    Samson7 Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Pennsylvania
    Yes. This is music to my ears.

    I was 15 or so when I heard my first CD and I bought into all the hype. I even gave my Ryko Disc Hendrix at Winterland on vinyl to a friend (still kicking myself for that one)
     
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  14. Stefan Sigurdsson

    Stefan Sigurdsson Forum Resident

    Location:
    Iceland
    Defending the CD:
    I'm born in 1967. Grow up listening on vinyl on my parents record player.
    As a teenager I spent most of my money on records, had a good collection and my own record player (not a good one I admit).
    On my 21th birthday in 1988 I bought new equipment, Pioneer CD player, Pioneer amp and big Pioneer 150W speakers. Free with this came The Beatles - Revolver CD.
    Sounded amazing. The horns on Got To get You Into My Life blasting. The backwards guitar on Taxman and I'm Only Sleeping so clear in the right speaker. The hypnotic drum beat and effects panning between speakers on Tomorrow Never Knows.
    I have never looked back. To me vinyl died 30 years ago.
    No I have a SACD player. Just listen to A Love Supreme - John Coltrane. Drum cymbals so clear, detailed and natural. Amazing.
     
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  15. Bingo Bongo

    Bingo Bongo Music gives me Eargasms

    Location:
    Ottawa, Canada
    I couldn't wait to get as many CDs as possible, but I ain't no audio engineer.
     
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  16. eelkiller

    eelkiller One of the great unwashed

    Location:
    Northern Ontario
    Great idea for a thread, we need more digital bashing. :righton:

    I think I will pass.
     
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  17. US Blues

    US Blues Undermining Consensus Reality

    I was in audio sales when the first CD players came out. They sounded like garbage. Yet as noted upthread, better DAC's, and better mastering in the digital domain, has changed everything for the better.
     
  18. Paul W

    Paul W Senior Member

    I attended a Linn seminar in which they demo'ed an LP on their LP12 and then played the same title on CD (mastered from the same source) on the "top" CD player of the day, whatever that was.......

    It wasn't even close.
     
  19. scotto

    scotto Senior Member

    I'll admit that the cleanliness of the CD's sound--the absence of hiss and pops, etc.--was revelatory. But the sound (to me) was maybe cleaner, but not better.
    For me this isn't necessarily digital bashing, but lamenting the passing of an era. I hated the thought that CDs would never come with a zipper or be shaped like a school desk or be able to be played backwards. For all that I disliked about CDs, I most hated how record companies were gouging consumers and robbing me of a format I loved. If anything, this is record company bashing.
     
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  20. +1
     
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  21. Rich C

    Rich C Forum Resident

    Location:
    Northbrook, IL
    Me too. For Christmas in 1994, my parent's bought me a nice little JVC mini system with a CD player. Of course, from the late '80s to around '94, I did not even have my old vinyl set up in working order. I had no clue how to change out a cartridge properly, let alone buy one to try and learn, and stereo shops were becoming scarce. I had not yet entered a high end store to know that there were still people who could help me. The mid range stereo equipment stores were all gone in my area. I was listening to cassettes in my car. That was the extent of my dedicated or planned listening experience. I remember needing to take a ride around the Lake and the Lagoons one day because I really wanted to listen to Neil's Ragged Glory one time.

    But, all of that aside, I seemed to be the only one among my circle of friends, coworkers, and extended family who did not jump on the bandwagon. The praise I heard for the format because people disliked surface noise or a little hiss, or the fact that they were practically indestructible drove me nuts.

    I also remembering walking into record shops and seeing the vinyl give way to the CDs. It felt like an invasion. Like the "good old days' were gone forever and I was barely 30 years old. At the time I could have been buying lots of vinyl on the cheap. And, had they not disappeared from the stores, in a position to actually buy a lot at retail prices.
     
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  22. Remington Steele

    Remington Steele Forum Resident

    Location:
    Saint George, Utah
    I'm sure the attempts at blanking out the master tape hiss made a lot of the cds sound weak on the treble end, a mastering issue. Add some cases of 3rd or 4th generation tapes being used for cd transfers and many thought it was an over hyped new format.
    However many corrections have been made and put together a crack sound engineer with DSD mastering and SACD technology and you can get the kind of sound previously reserved for people listening to the 15 IPS master in the recording studio.
     
  23. libertycaps

    libertycaps Forum Resident

    Location:
    Portland, OR, USA
    CDs are infinitely better than lossy mp3's. Vinyl only really makes sense when married with mid/hi-fi quality stereo gear.
    I was one of those who dumped the LPs for CDs in the early 90. I only had a crap just got outta that US Army PX stereo back then.
    Have been buying back those LPs ever since. But now i'm getting original pressings!

    And don't blame the format, it's the mastering job and production values that makes or breaks.
     
  24. Chooke

    Chooke Forum Resident

    Location:
    Perth, Australia
    Oh dear, another CD bashing thread.

    They were not true audiophiles in the proper sense of the word.

    Most people heard CDs as a sound improvement over LPs and cassettes which it was and still is, depending on the recording/mastering of the CD of course.

    I was around back then, attending hi fi demonstrations etc. Hardly anyone would have said otherwise, so too the audiophile reviewers and mags back then.

    This started to change much later when the loudness wars kicked in. The problem was, and still is, not the format but what labels do with it.
     
  25. WestGrooving

    WestGrooving Forum Resident

    Location:
    California, U.S.A
    Back in the late 80's, I had trouble listening to CDs for more than 40 minutes or so. I figured it was because the sound was so pure and I wasn't used to that kind of purity (coming from vinyl with surface noise & cassette tapes with hiss).

    To me it seems like CDs, LPs & pre-recorded cassettes have totally different strengths & weaknesses.
     
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