The Compact disc is 30 years old today

>>> Like I said, get a grip...

 

One of the best side effects of the introduction of the CD format was the more comprehensive and historical approach to reissuing material. I remember when the 9-CD Stax records box set hit the streets with great organization, liner notes, and historical context...

I guess that was a great aspect of the CD reissues of olde catalog material -- context. All of a sudden the artist's correct history was important and the annotation became an integral part of the product...

 

Fair enough, I guess I just overreacted to/read too much into a post that struck me as a borderline threadcrap, but people are entitled to their views, positive or negative!

 

Oh never mind. The post I responded to is borderline trolling and I really don't want to get into a fruitless argument with its author (ls35a). Carry on.

 

I can see why people would take it as a borderline threadcrap since it was so overwhelmingly negative but I do think it is relevant to log possible negative views of the CD's legacy as well. I thought it was particularly interesting because it made me consider an aspect of the CD's marketing that had not yet crystallized for me before - the fact that it made individual albums much more expensive overnight. And I remember well the LP price wars of the years directly before the CD's introduction. Jacking up LP prices by a dollar was a big fat hairy deal in 1981, but when the CD was introduced a couple of years later for more than twice the price, there was much less complaining, because it was this "space-age" technology.

 

My first cd player was a Magnavox I think (made by Phillips?) and was from the electronics store I worked. The big brands we sold in audio were Onkyo and Sony. Stuff from Technics, Pioneer or JVC was considered inferior for some reason but probably had as much to do with the markup as anything else. For speakers, the Bose 901s were top of the line and we also sold a line called Allison. They were actually amazing speakers. Had a pair of the Allison 4's for a long time. First cds I owned included Sgt. Peppers, Decade of Steely Dan, Van Halen S/t, Boston S/T, and I remember I had a Sam Cooke I loved. IT was 1987. Also had a Kenwood receiver and a Teac dual cassette deck.

 

Summer of 1987 - got a Sony player and Level 42's "World Machine". It felt like an exotic import - pressed in West Germany with tracks that were not on the U.S. LP. The next week I had The Cure's "Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me" and Rush's "Exit Stage Left", both of which had one less track the the corresponding 2 LP sets.

I quickly stopped scouring the $3.99-$5.99 budget cassette bins at Camelot Music and National Record Mart (which were full of a lot of great back catalog) and started dumping way more money into CDs all through college. Got back into vinyl in 1991, but have acquired a lot of both formats since then. Same obsession, different format. ; )

 

my first cd player from 1985...sony cdp 30

 

You just knew the vinyl zealots would have to have their say on a thread specifically celebrating the CD.

 

My first CD was Red Hot & Blue (1990). Late to the party, but it was a good cause!

 

For the relatively new members of the forum, we had a History of the Compact Disc thread that is more informative, not to mention entertaining, than any CD-related article out today.

 

Yup.

 

I do love seeing the pictures of the really 80's CD players though! Please show more!

 

Although I am a fan of CDs, the earlier post about the gigantic price difference between LPs/Cassettes and CDs got me thinking:

Does anyone remember if there was any written justification for the huge price jump? Were we told that since these were supposed to "last forever" that the industry could justify such a massive price hike?

I recall being so enamored with the format that I didn't mind saving up twice as long for new CDs...

 

One of the silliest things ive ever read.

Ya think they just randomly made something that sounded bad, or that maybe this guy has an agenda.....


I can picture the mastering engineer..."Uh wow, this is horrible, utterly dreck, but hey lets press it anyways...".....ehhhhh

 

I don't remember price being all that big a deal. Almost every CD being sold in the first few years was manufactured and distributed from either Europe or Japan. And European import LPs went for about $15.99 each - Japanese import LPs were around $21.99 each.

The price for domestic CDs were supposed to be less, in theory, once all the new pressing plants were built stateside. The price did kind of stay the same over the next thirty years but, when you calculate inflation, they're a lot cheaper now than (even domestic) LPs were then.

 

Back in the early 80s, the cost of a CD was about the same as the cost of an audiophile vinyl record. Since the CD represented "Perfect Sound Forever" while the record would slowly wear out, well, I think this is one reason the price point of CDs was around $20.

Audiophile Gold CDs were priced at $30. Which is why to this day I won't spend more than $30 per album, ever though taking into account inflation, $50 would be more accurate.

I guess $30 is burned in my head.

 

CDs. That's that new format, isn't it?

And how do you open the boxes???

30 years! Where did the time go?

Happy Birthday CD!

 

I think there's some articles in some old Billboards that are lying around about pricing. Investigation is in order...

 

I remember my brother getting his first cd player in 1987. I think the first cd he bought was U2's War. I remember the first cd I bought was Rush's Hold Your Fire. I would just go into his room and we would listen to cd's. I used to also buy black cassettes and start taping cd's onto tape to listen to them either in my room or my car when I first started driving in 1989.

Ahh, those were the days...

 

Thanks for the background info. I don't hate the CD, sometimes complain about the sound, but if I listen to an ECM cd I know that it doesn't have to sound terrible.

My reference is a little different as I can remember playing 78's for my Dad who had polio on a swell RCA table top mahogany cabinet changer with a "full-range" 8" speaker and thinking it was swell. When I think of that I find it hard to really complain about any of the lps, cds, dvds, cassettes, or other media I play and enjoy on some very affordable Yamaha, Denon, Pioneer, Sony, Dual, AR, Advent, and Triangle gear.

I am going to do my best to stop complaining about being alive to hear the best audio sound that has graced an American household ever. I have forgotten that small point.

 

Its as if everyone forgets all the reasons MOST of us ushered in CD.

Most records suffered at least some of these issues in small or moderate amounts.

I was glad the first time I was able to walk heavily across the floor with the sound up really loud and no skipping or feedback or noise, even between tracks.

 

My old Sony CDP-302 pictured in post 68 had the "Index" feature.

That was a redbook feature that was supposed to be used to hard-code index points within longer works. I've only ever run into one CD that had an index point coded on it, and I think it was a mistake. It was on the first pressing of Jeff Wayne's WAR OF THE WORLDS.

Harry

 

Don't suppose anybody has any pictures of CD music sections from the early-mid 80's, with all the cool longboxes in the bins. I remember being awestruck by these $25 things when I was in The Federated Group store in Riverside California back in da day.

 

Bought my first player in Oct. '85 when they hit the magic price point of $200. My first CD was "Communiqué" by Dire Straits.