On This Day In 1983 Philips Launched The CD.

[HamishBoxer]

On this day in 1983, I understand the CD was to be launched by Philips.

[Paul_RK]

Originally Posted by HamishBoxer

On this day in 1983, I understand the CD was to be launched by Philips.

And just five years later I equipped myself to play them, because the releases I wanted to hear were starting to happen on CD only. I would have given very long odds to anyone who told me that after another 35 years I'd occasionally be buying newly released LPs because there wasn't a CD version.

Paul

[Nuvistor]

I remember it was in 1983 but not the date, one was previewed on the John Dunn drive time show on Radio 2. He was impressed with it.
A CD player was not something I could afford at that time but since used them many times.

John Dunn for those who haven’t heard of him was an excellent presenter, very much missed.

[Sideband]

I worked for Philips at the time. I don't remember the date of official launch but I do remember the development phase and hearing a demonstration before it was officially launched. It was a recording of the 1812 overture with real cannons played into a pair of Philips Motional feedback speakers.....the big ones in our audio demo room. I'd never heard anything like it. That was from one of the first CD player of course, the Philips CD100 with a Sony chipset......For those not aware, the CD was a joint development between Sony and Philips. Sony had their chipset ready before Philips......

[Sideband]

Originally Posted by Paul_RK

And just five years later I equipped myself to play them,

I also waited about the same amount of time because I wanted the technology to 'mature' before I bought a CD player. Within 5 years, 16 bit players had appeared and the price had plummeted. I went to the Philips Staff Shop and bought a CD207 for the discount price of £99 (normal price was £150). It was a good investment....36 years later I'm still using it!

[HamishBoxer]

Yes, I too have my working Phillips CD player, £100 from Dixons back then.

[Paul_RK]

My first was the one that happened to come along at our local auction, a five-disc Pioneer, probably about two years old when I bought it in '88: still working as far as I know but I've not used it in a while. Eventually I picked up a Philips CD100, £10 from South Shields flea market, but something nasty that I've yet to investigate befell its mechanism in our move four years ago.

[Rich Woods]

I bought my first CD player in 1991, a JVC XLZ-411 recommended to me for use with vintage valve pre amps as it has a variable output with a volume control, ideal for matching up to the 100mv inputs on the Leak pre-amp. Sadly the mechanism wore out a few years ago and having tried other players I was unable to find one that matched the Leak so well so a few months ago I ordered another XLZ-411 from eBay and it’s just as good as I remembered.

[Maarten]

Originally Posted by Sideband

That was from one of the first CD player of course, the Philips CD100 with a Sony chipset......For those not aware, the CD was a joint development between Sony and Philips. Sony had their chipset ready before Philips......

Strangely, the first (late 1982 and early 1983) production runs of the CD100 were as far as I have found, never equipped with Sony ICs but with Mullard pre-production types of the later Philips SAA70xx chipset.

Only later, presumably when CD200 and CD300 production ramped up in Hasselt *), there was apparently a shortage and a new digital board was designed to use the Sony chipset (I'm not entirely sure, but I think Fujitsu might have been involved in that chipset as well). This board was never used in the CD100 so there must have been a sufficient number of Philips chips too keep that production running at least.

*) CD100 and OEM production was started and maintained throughout the CD100/CD101 era in Eindhoven. The Eindhoven factory only ever produced those two models and their OEM cousins. Hasselt started their CD100 production a bit later after introducing the CD200 and CD300.

[mark_in_manc]

I was 12 in '83, so one of the last kids to buy 'new' records. When I was a teenager, 'serious' music kids bought records, and those less serious (and girls like my sis ) used cassettes. Even by '89 when I went to university almost no-one I knew owned a CD player, and the one guy that did owned only one or two (expensive) discs - again, amongst a cohort who were very 'into' music. It only became more common by the time we left in '93. So it took a long time for the technology to penetrate the young-person's market.

Actually, in a summer job in BBC radio at BH and around, CD players were still a bit of a novelty in 1990 (I remember some odd (Sony?) top-loading players which the engineers tried to keep at arms length), and tape and records were still everywhere.

[stevehertz]

Yes and long may they live.

[Sideband]

Originally Posted by Maarten

Strangely, the first (late 1982 and early 1983) production runs of the CD100 were as far as I have found, never equipped with Sony ICs but with Mullard pre-production types of the later Philips SAA70xx chipset.

Only later, presumably when CD200 and CD300 production ramped up in Hasselt *), there was apparently a shortage and a new digital board was designed to use the Sony chipset (I'm not entirely sure, but I think Fujitsu might have been involved in that chipset as well). This board was never used in the CD100 so there must have been a sufficient number of Philips chips too keep that production running at least.

*) CD100 and OEM production was started and maintained throughout the CD100/CD101 era in Eindhoven. The Eindhoven factory only ever produced those two models and their OEM cousins. Hasselt started their CD100 production a bit later after introducing the CD200 and CD300.

You may well be right. I remember the demo machine was a pre-production sample and we were told that there had been something of a rush for Philips to be first on the market and that chip production was holding things up. That being the case, a Sony decoder was being used in the demo (it was probably a 'bitsa' (bitsa this and bitsa that) since the training group had been pulling it apart for months producing a training course and circuit description. It's highly likely that the Philips chipset was fully available by the time it was ready for the market.

[G6Tanuki]

My first CD player was a £450 additional-cost option in a company-car back in 1985.

I still have the domestic Philips CD710 player I bought in the early-90s. It won't load CDs any more [but that's not really much of an issue since I got rid of my CD collection over a decade back].

CD was a big improvement on cassettes!

[electronicskip]

My first CD Player was bought from Laskys in the early days of CDs.
Cant really remember what the make was , but Sentra seems to ring a bell with me.

[hamid_1]

In the early days, I seem to remember some pretty extravagant claims that compact discs could be played even after drilling holes in them or spreading peanut butter on them.

The first players and discs were very expensive, non-recordable and the titles available seemed to be mostly classical music. I wasn't too interested at first. I eventually bought a secondhand Toshiba player around 1990 and a couple of discs but continued to use tape for several years afterwards.

I've since acquired the first commercially-available CD player - the Sony CDP-101 - which I found by someone's dustbin over a decade ago. It needed a replacement NE5532P op-amp chip. Cost less than £1 to fix it. The player is very heavy - built like a tank compared with modern CD players.

Looking back, it's amazing how much the prices have come down. Recently Asda were selling some cheap portable CD players for less than £20. Pre-recorded CDs have remained around the £12 mark, about the same price as they were 30 years ago. Allowing for inflation, that's quite a price cut. In fact CDs are usually cheaper than vinyl records these days, whereas it used to be the opposite.

[Junk Box Nick]

I remember hearing a discussion about these remarkable CDs on the radio – I cannot remember if it was with the very excellent and much missed John Dunn on Radio 2 (those were the days!) – but part of the demonstration involved using the contents of an ashtray!

The first CD player I saw in action was during Christmas 1985. My girlfriend of the time’s brother who worked for the Beeb brought one to the new year eve houseparty. I can’t remember what was played other than being current release pop albums. I do remember seeing the disc whizzing round and thinking how peculiar this looked compared to an LP.

For the next few years I was still buying new release and new back-catalogue LPs wich could be had for about £2.25 though some of them seemed to be on increasingly thin and floppy vinyl.

I got my first ‘Hi-Fi stack’ CD player around 1989 or possibly 1990: A Philips CD610 from Richer Sounds for something over £100 and which I used with the Sony TA-333 amplifier recently offered on the forum.

My first CDs were all classical which seemed to have seized quickly on the technology. I joined the Britannia Music Club taking the bait of the Herbert von Karajan complete Beethoven symphonies at a knock-down price as part of the sign-up deal. I got some excellent CDs through Britannia, many of which remain favourites – including several of the default editor’s choices which I forgot to opt out of! – and still get played regularly today.

CDs remained relatively expensive so my buying was limited but on a motor trip to France in 1991 I noticed how much cheaper CDs were in France. Myself and another friend in the party who was into classical came back with armfuls.

In the early 1990s BBC Music Magazine launched with a cover CD. I stopped by at a Post Office/newsagent in a not particularly salubrious part of town to post a packet and was rather surprised to see what was edition no. 1 on the shelf. I have every edition since and a bookcase full of CDs. These expanded my listening experience greatly and exposed me to music I would never have considered buying; and I enjoy browsing the shelves to pick something out to play and reading the sleeve notes.

The Philips CD610 remains my first and only ‘stack’ player and is still forms part of my main hi-fi system.

[stevehertz]

Talking about the price of CDs, they're 50p around here in charity shops. I, like many I suspect, own far more than I am ever going to be able to play on a worthwhile basis. I need to have a sort out.

[Junk Box Nick]

Three for a quid in my neck of the woods (same for DVDs). Often they are on trestle tables outside. I rather think the shop doesn’t care if they are pinched as it probably helps with the stock room.

[DrStrangelove]

I bought a CD104. I have no recollection of how much it cost.

It's 14 bit & I tended to find it fatiguing.

I do remember that the CD of Dark Side of the Moon was a Japanese import and cost about £14.

These days I prefer to listen to the "Pulse" version on an ancient Sanyo portable with antishock plugged into a Linsley Hood 75W feeding a couple of Mission 700s.

[Aub]

My first CD player was a Denon DCD300 in 1987. My intention was only to use it for classical music and stick to the Vynal for all else. That only lasted about 6 months. The CDs were so convenient 🙂

Cheers

Aub