1985 news story on the debut of CDs

[mmntech]

Stumbled across this in my browsing. A 1985 news story on the debut of newfangled compact disc players.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwrU8s-M-gc

Must have been pretty mind blowing at the time. My dad used to be like the audiophile guy in this story. He bought a Pioneer CD player shortly after they came out. Still has it and it still works. Amazing that 30 years later and we're back to buying LoFi music again.

Two other things I love about this:
-The CD factory guy's hair
-That someone in the YouTube comments found the audiophile guy on Facebook. It's definitely him. Gotta love technology.

 

[Kaido]

Reminds me of that scene from the Wedding Singer where he brings home the CD player. Only $600! :awe:

It's funny how things change. We got a T1 in high school. The tech kids in the lab hijacked it for Napster. No one had that kind of access at the time, it was amazing! I grew up with records & the radio, then some cassettes, then CD's & homemade CD's, and now? I pay $10 a month to have full access to 30 million songs via Spotify, and anything not on there is on Youtube for free streaming.

I tried to get into lofi for awhile with a record player, and it was really cool, especially hunting around at yardsales & goodwills for old music, but the convenience of having a quality streaming solution is pretty awesome too. Between Spotify, Pandora, and Youtube, pretty much 100% of my audio listening needs are met. Makes you wonder what happened to all of those CD companies...

 

[88keys]

I wonder if hipsters will be scrounging around for old VHS tapes citing their superior imaging quality 30 years from now lol.

Though to be fair, it did take awhile before people finally figured out how to mix and master for CDs and alot of the early versions weren't as good as their vinyl counterparts. And now everybody is brickwalling everything making newer releases sound shitty.

 

[Fenixgoon]

amazing how far we've come. i would love to hear what someone who's 80-100 say about the progress of technology in their lifetime. must be pretty mindblowing.

 

[tcsenter]

We got a CD player in IIRC 1986. It was a console (not component) stereo system branded and sold by Sears. It came bundled with a couple CDs as part of the sale; compilations of Mozart, Beethoven, and a few others. I think I still have those CDs packed away somewhere in a box. Put the stereo in a dumpster around 1995 after one channel went out on the internal amp or EQ.

 

[Humpy]

I clearly remember the first time I heard music from a CD, 1988 I heard Captain Jack through little Polk speakers at a friends house. I was amazed at the clean sound. I bought a player a few months later and was most happy that I had such a good source to make mix tapes from.

Edit: Re-reading this post I am also shocked that it only took 20 years for the best thing ever to become worthless crap.

 

[mmntech]

amazing how far we've come. i would love to hear what someone who's 80-100 say about the progress of technology in their lifetime. must be pretty mindblowing.

Mass broadcasting dates back to 1922, when the BBC incorporated. My Grandma was born a year later. So she's witnessed mass media since its inception. Imagine back then flipping a switch on a box and having music literally come out of thin air. Must have seemed like magic.

We really are kind of blasais about the futuristic wonder world we live in.

 

[IronWing]

Nickelodeon used to have a gee whiz science show back in the early 80s. They covered the new CD technology in ~1981. At that time the prediction was that CDs were going to be thicker and encased in plastic, protecting the music. They had a cartoon of a dog carrying a CD around the house to no ill effect on the CD.

 

[sandorski]

Mass broadcasting dates back to 1922, when the BBC incorporated. My Grandma was born a year later. So she's witnessed mass media since its inception. Imagine back then flipping a switch on a box and having music literally come out of thin air. Must have seemed like magic.

We really are kind of blasais about the futuristic wonder world we live in.

Indeed. Even I am and I lived when there were 2 TV channels that kinda came in on a good day and Records were the only source of purchasable media. Now a days I have pretty much everything at my fingertips and get annoyed if a webpage doesn't load instantaneously.

 

[Wyndru]

Whatever happened to dvd-a?

It was way superior to LP's

 

[shortylickens]

Not completely mind blowing. They came from laser disc. Why do you think they called them COMPACT discs? We already had something larger.

 

[angminas]

I wonder if hipsters will be scrounging around for old VHS tapes citing their superior imaging quality 30 years from now lol.

Though to be fair, it did take awhile before people finally figured out how to mix and master for CDs and alot of the early versions weren't as good as their vinyl counterparts. And now everybody is brickwalling everything making newer releases sound shitty.

VHS doesn't have unskippable previews / warnings, endlessly repeating shitty music / spoilers on the menu, etc. It also costs a lot less and is far less likely to be a stupid "director's cut" that breaks the fourth wall with pointless changes. If the tape is in good condition, I'm good with VHS.

 

[BoberFett]

Indeed. Even I am and I lived when there were 2 TV channels that kinda came in on a good day and Records were the only source of purchasable media. Now a days I have pretty much everything at my fingertips and get annoyed if a webpage doesn't load instantaneously.

Yeah, but you're in Canada, that was last year.

 

[lxskllr]

I got my first player in 86 or 87. Players and CDs were expensive, but it was amazing. Vinyl is such crap. It still amazes me vinyl is making a comeback. It's like outfitting your computer with vacuum tubes.

 

[Ichinisan]

Not sure what I was looking into, but I saw this video a few months ago.

 

[irishScott]

I remember getting a portable CD player for Christmas as a kid in the 90s. Was during the big "CD Player vs Boom Box" debate that every elementary school seemed to have. My side won.

 

[Mixolydian]

Whatever happened to dvd-a?

It was way superior to LP's

I actually have a couple DVD-Audio albums. Indeed, the quality is superb.

 

[Thump553]

I got my first player in 86 or 87. Players and CDs were expensive, but it was amazing. Vinyl is such crap. It still amazes me vinyl is making a comeback. It's like outfitting your computer with vacuum tubes.

This. I got my first CD player about the same time. It was at the bankruptcy auction of a stereo store (remember those) and I ended up getting an extremely basic player, floor model, for $200-and bidders on the players that went on auction first paid over twice as much for the same thing.

The only disappointing thing was the almost total lack of music available on CD. Only the biggest sellers came out on the CD-the explosion of re-releases on CD wouldn't happen for another 5-10 years. Plus a lot of the early CDs were really badly mastered-they were straight transfers from the final vinyl LP masters-which had treble boosted.

I still have probably 12-15 feet of LPs. I keeping them so my estate can make a killing.

 

[mmntech]

Whatever happened to dvd-a?

It was way superior to LP's

Died off due to lack of popularity, lack of portable players, a format war, and strict DRM. I recall my original fat PS3 could play SACD but I don't recall even seeing them for sale.

There were going to be Bluray-A discs with something like 24-bit 96khz at one point but that concept never came to pass.

 

[SearchMaster]

My first was a portable Panasonic, it was ~$250 IIRC. My boss at Ace Hardware had a friend at an electronics store so I got it at wholesale cost - I think it was 1985 but may have been 1986 (the two summers I worked at Ace). My first CD was Rush's "Power Windows" - it was the only one I could find at Target that was digitally mastered.

And yes, Laser Disc already existed but never had much popularity. My roommate in college in '86 had one (his dad was a contractor who had demo'ed an old record store and found it along with many movies) but the quality wasn't that good for most movies. If the movie was encoded digitally, it would take 2-3 discs to hold the movie which was annoying. So a lot of the movies were analog. So there was little reason to get one (fewer movies, low availability to rent, expensive to buy).

 

[Tombstone1881]

You guys and your digital CD technology!

You'll have to pry my 8-tracks from my cold dead hands!

But seriously, I'm still only up to CD's/DVD's.
I haven't even moved into MP3's or anything like that yet! :\

 

[Ken g6]

640MB should be enough for anybody!

 

[lxskllr]

640MB should be enough for anybody!

Sure seemed like a lot at the time. CDs were a reasonable backup medium. Now it would be like backing up your XP machine to floppies :^D

 

[IronWing]

You guys and your digital CD technology!

You'll have to pry my 8-tracks from my cold dead hands!

But seriously, I'm still only up to CD's/DVD's.
I haven't even moved into MP3's or anything like that yet! :\

You haven't missed anything. Go lossless or go home.

Cue the hyperventilating, spittle spewing, no-one-can-tell-the-difference ranting and raging.

 

[Ichinisan]

My first was a portable Panasonic, it was ~$250 IIRC. My boss at Ace Hardware had a friend at an electronics store so I got it at wholesale cost - I think it was 1985 but may have been 1986 (the two summers I worked at Ace). My first CD was Rush's "Power Windows" - it was the only one I could find at Target that was digitally mastered.

And yes, Laser Disc already existed but never had much popularity. My roommate in college in '86 had one (his dad was a contractor who had demo'ed an old record store and found it along with many movies) but the quality wasn't that good for most movies. If the movie was encoded digitally, it would take 2-3 discs to hold the movie which was annoying. So a lot of the movies were analog. So there was little reason to get one (fewer movies, low availability to rent, expensive to buy).

All laserdisc movies were analog. Many that fit on one disc only did because the movie was edited down.