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Topic: The CD Is Now 40 Years Old (Read 4467 times) previous topic - next topic
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The CD Is Now 40 Years Old

Here’s something that might blow your mind:  The compact disc turns 40 YEARS OLD today.  To celebrate, here are a few facts about CDs . . .
1.  The very first CD was produced at a German factory in August of 1982.  It’s unclear what it was . . . so technically, it’s possible that it was an early recording from David Hasselhoff, but probably not.
2.  The “first” CD to be released commercially came out in Japan in October of that year, 1982.  It was “52nd Street” by Billy Joel, which wasn’t a new release.  It was originally put out on vinyl in 1978.
3.  It seems random to suddenly be selling “52nd Street” on a shiny disc . . . no matter how much you like “Zanzibar” . . . but that wasn’t actually the case.  There were 50 albums released on CD at once . . . “52nd Street” just gets the special distinction because it had the first catalog number.
4.  The first commercially produced CD player was the Sony CDP-101.  In 1982, it cost about $1,000, although some deluxe players went for more than $1,500.  By the mid ’80s, the average player sold for $300 to $600.
5.  The first CDs cost more than $20 apiece.  By the mid ’80s, they settled into a range of $11 to $15.  Although, that was around $30 in today’s money.
(Then, 10 years later, Columbia House was selling 10 CDs for a PENNY . . . sort of.  And then things came full circle, with CDs shooting back up to around $20 apiece in recent years.)
6.  By 1985 . . . three years after the CD’s debut . . . there were about 2,600 CD titles available, which is a lot.
But by comparison, around 50,000 titles were being printed on vinyl at that time.
Of those CDs, approximately one-third were classical . . . one-third were pop / rock . . . and one-third were other genres, like jazz and Broadway.  And a year before that, in 1984, ONE-HALF of the available CDs were classical.
7.  CD sales peaked in 2000 . . . and not long after the slide began.  BUT, CD sales were actually UP last year for the first time in almost 20 years.

https://ibb.co/6gBN9c7

Re: The CD Is Now 40 Years Old

Reply #1
Anyone having one of these 1st CDs? How does it rip/play today?

Re: The CD Is Now 40 Years Old

Reply #2
I bought a second hand CD for this comparison, Dutch Swing College Band - Digital Dutch. It was a 'launch title' of the CD system in Europe, from Philips own label. Recorded (digitally) in 1982, released in 1983. Bought it this year, I don't remember having any issues ripping or playing it.
Music: sounds arranged such that they construct feelings.

Re: The CD Is Now 40 Years Old

Reply #3
The very few incidents of "CD rot" known, are traced down a couple of production plants, and the problem seems to have started later: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_disc_bronzing

Then a digression:
It was a 'launch title' of the CD system in Europe, from Philips own label. Recorded (digitally) in 1982, released in 1983.
Recorded digitally live at the North Sea Jazz Festival, and with subsequent "digital editing" credited. As this is (optim)frog food in your test, it suggests then that it might have been recorded to a different digital format? [OptimFROG is "known to" make use of patterns that emerge from upconversion]
Makes sense, as Philips had their stakes in something else than 44100/16, and had to give up on that to get the partnership with Sony going. Then OTOH, did the recording facilities even attempt at the boundaries of 44.1/16 back then?

Re: The CD Is Now 40 Years Old

Reply #4
@rutra80:
I happen to have a Japan/CBS edition of Billy Joel's "52nd Street", but I'm not sure if it's from that first catalog titles. Mine has this catalog number: CDCBS 83181. I bought it as my first CD (sic!) in April 1984 from my first salery (along with a decent Yamaha CD player) and it still plays & looks pristine.

Re: The CD Is Now 40 Years Old

Reply #5
The first CD issue of 52nd Street had the number "35DP 1". Also in the same round of releases was Joel's "The Stranger" as "35DP 2".


Re: The CD Is Now 40 Years Old

Reply #7
I have a couple of 1983 Billy Joel's, The Nylon Curtain and The Stranger.  They still sound good.

Re: The CD Is Now 40 Years Old

Reply #8
I have not yet found a single CD in my 1000+ collection that fell for "Disc rot".
But I have to admit that I treat my CDs very carefully (always store them in a place out of direct sunlight, handle with care, ...)
And, to be honest, after ripping them all to FLAC I don't handle them at all, except for occasional reading the booklet.

Re: The CD Is Now 40 Years Old

Reply #9
I had an old Van Halen CD that looked like swiss cheese.

Re: The CD Is Now 40 Years Old

Reply #10
I have a copy of 52nd Street "35DP 1". Still plays fine. Although I will say, it's more of a keep sake - it's not been in heavy rotation of 40 years.

Re: The CD Is Now 40 Years Old

Reply #11
...and it's still the best physical format available. although I have not bought a store bought CD since the early 2000's although most CD's I bought would have been in the late 1990's for sure. but I still use burned CD-R's occasionally. it's still my preferred format for playing music outside of my computer that's not in a portable form (although I still do have my portable CD player which I think has a Dec 1999 mfg date).

so while CD's have technically been around for 40 years, you might as well say on roughly a more mainstream level it's more towards 30 years or so as I imagine in the 1980's (I was a kid in the 1980's so I can't really say much here) CD player units were probably too expensive for the common person. so at least for a large portion of that decade it was out of reach for many, if not most, people.

I don't remember what we paid for our Panasonic RX-DS620 (April 1991 mfg date) in probably late 1991 to maybe 1992, but I would guess around $200, probably had to be at least $100+ from my best estimate. while the tape player semi-works, it will get stuck with a tape in it if you press I think it was either the rewind or fast-forward and have to take it apart and spin some white plastic wheel on it to free the tape. but I don't really use tapes anyways (I have not used tapes since sometime in the 1990's pretty much) as that units sole worth is for playing CD's which is still does well as if the CD unit died, the unit would be pretty much junk since I don't really care for radio use in general, never really have (maybe a brief bit around 1993 or so). it plays overburned CD-R's well to as I burned one to 82min15sec not all that long ago and it shows up on the unit as 82min12sec and plays to the end of the disc without issue.

p.s. based on https://cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/12950.jpeg you can see CD's, while THE peak was 2000, you can see the 1990's and 2000's were when it was at it's strongest in general and then it started a rapid decline after that. like if you want to look at the years with say roughly a minimum of 250,000,000 CD's sold that was about 1990 through about 2010-2011. but as you can see in the picture, and even what that sites general article says, CD sales actually increased in 2021 which it said was the first time they increased in about 20 years. but lets hope CD's continue to sell enough to keep them in existence as it will be a sad day when people can no longer get music on CD's as then it will be a downgrade.
For music I suggest (using Foobar2000)... MP3 (LAME) @ V5 (130kbps). NOTE: using on AGPTEK-U3 as of Mar 18th 2021. I use 'fatsort' (on Linux) so MP3's are listed in proper order on AGPTEK-U3.

Re: The CD Is Now 40 Years Old

Reply #12
I have a few albums on CD that were originally released before CDs came out.  I'm not sure how old they actually are, but they do have instructions on how to handle/play it.  I don't know if newer copies would still have those instructions on the artwork.

Re: The CD Is Now 40 Years Old

Reply #13
Here’s something that might blow your mind:  The compact disc turns 40 YEARS OLD today.  To celebrate, here are a few facts about CDs . . .
1.  The very first CD was produced at a German factory in August of 1982.  It’s unclear what it was . . . so technically, it’s possible that it was an early recording from David Hasselhoff, but probably not.
I also read that Abba's album The Visitors was one of the first to be digitally recorded and mixed. Don't know at which resolution, but am eager to learn :)

The release date of that Abba album roughly coincides with my birth date, and the CD format itself had an essential impact on my private and professional life. And a good one, I would say ;)

So happy anniversary, CD! As ThaCrip hinted at, in terms of audio quality you were way ahead of your time! (with all the streaming services and Vinyl revival, we've been going backwards recently).

Chris
If I don't reply to your reply, it means I agree with you.

Re: The CD Is Now 40 Years Old

Reply #14
Here’s something that might blow your mind:  The compact disc turns 40 YEARS OLD today.  To celebrate, here are a few facts about CDs . . .
1.  The very first CD was produced at a German factory in August of 1982.  It’s unclear what it was . . . so technically, it’s possible that it was an early recording from David Hasselhoff, but probably not.
I also read that Abba's album The Visitors was one of the first to be digitally recorded and mixed. Don't know at which resolution, but am eager to learn :)

Actually, myth has it that The Visitors was the first CD pressed at that new factory. No offense to Hasselhoff.
But, according to the Wikipedia article, the tracks were run through the analog gear to get the same sound for all songs; the first three one had already been cut before the digital console arrived.

"digitally mixed" was a misnomer for years. The SPARS codes only referred to the medium - a DDD meant that it was recorded to digital medium, came out of the mixing desk on a digital medium, and was mastered to a digital medium. The mixing itself could - and would typically - happen in the analog domain. Including on the much-hyped DDD of Brothers in Arms.

Re: The CD Is Now 40 Years Old

Reply #15
So far as I can recall, my first CD was a DDD bought before I even acquired a CD player, and the CD player I bought was a Philips CD207 (still working so far as I know, or it was last time I tried it).  We have two in the family.

The CD is Kiri Te Kanawa "Blue Skies", copyright 1985.  I also have Brothers In Arms (but it's a replacement copy, my original was lost in a stolen car).
It's your privilege to disagree, but that doesn't make you right and me wrong.

Re: The CD Is Now 40 Years Old

Reply #16
I'm from the dark past born 1972. I visited record shops, which was fun, but hated the flaws of that ancient technology, same goes for tapes. Which you could also buy, but IMO that was much less common. I used tapes for recording radio, that's just what we did. Me and my buddies, we dreamt of some kind of far future, where you could buy something like a small 1cm^3 cube, which holds A WHOLE ALBUM with some kind of magic tech. And no moving/rotating parts, no direct contact, all those flaws...

Then CD came. In the beginning, expensive media for the exclusivistic and elitist jazz and classical snobs. But later, I bought such a magic player, 750 Deutsche Mark which may be equivalent now with 700-1000 "toilet paper soon" EUR.

Well, now it's 2022 and I don't buy physical media any more since IDK, 10 years. Last physical album was Autechre Draft 7.30, I have zero itch for physical. I'm witnessing people of my age use vinyl and tape, well they want to feel young again, exclusive, king, whatever. A nice hobby but... We all come and go after all.

I'm sitting on terabytes of FLACs of basically either IDM or Classical Music - my life won't probably be long enough to explore what I want to explore - good! I don't listen to the FLACs directly, I create encodes for the numerous target devices which are mostly at my current standard which is Apple AAC @TVBR 91 or 100. Good enough for sure - and I will never hunt for artifacts. In the dark past when there were tapes, I heard every micrometer of tape head misalignment, which was more of a curse.
Having some extreme FLACs like 192khz, ~5000 kbps is probably nice to have, but totally unnecessary especially since I create lossy anyway, and ears degrade. But yeah, tech nerds, resistance is futile.
I'm a collector, I think younger generations are rather streamers.

Ear degradation: There's some high freq. sine (need to measure it, I think somewhere 18khz+) in Autechre - Piezo (Amber) which comes in at 13 seconds. Sigh, this is not existing for me any more. Made me sad. But well, not a game changer :D

My first CD was Baby Ford - Chikki Chikki Ahh Ahh // my first Vinyl was Technotronic - Pump Up the Jam
And please: Don't tell anyone.

My experience with old ("bought in the 90s") CDs is: they mostly still work well. Broken CDs extremely rare.

I'm wondering why people put their stuff out (say, on Bandcamp) still in 44.1 - Makes no sense IMO... I'd go for 48/96/192


Re: The CD Is Now 40 Years Old

Reply #18
I have zero itch for physical
Pirated radio recordings etc notwithstanding, at least with proper physical purchased media there are clear rights of ownership and a revenue going back to the artists and producers.  What kind of rights come with virtual media, and how much does the likes of Amazon return to the artists?  Can of worms.  I'll stick with my CDs thank you, kept as evidence of ownership and licence, even if I do actually consume them ripped to MP3.  I guess the younger generation are too used to everything being available at the drop of a hat and for next to nothing.
It's your privilege to disagree, but that doesn't make you right and me wrong.

 

Re: The CD Is Now 40 Years Old

Reply #19
What the artist gets for a physical release is even more of a can of worms. It is easier to know what download services like iTunes, Bandcamp and Boomkat charge, that is quite public. It has been around 30 percent IIRC. Of course you don't know how much is to their label, but some accounts are run by the individual artists.

Today is "Bandcamp Friday" where Bandcamp forfeits their share (though not the payment system's) for the next (checks https://isitbandcampfriday.com ) nineteen hours.  Since Bandcamp has cancelled some of my download after taking the money, I only buy on days like these, channeling the revenue outside the middle man.

Re: The CD Is Now 40 Years Old

Reply #20
I'll stick with my CDs thank you, kept as evidence of ownership and licence, even if I do actually consume them ripped to MP3.  I guess the younger generation are too used to everything being available at the drop of a hat and for next to nothing.
Am I a representative of the young generation now?! I don't know what you are talking about. Quite a few artists I appreciate (e.g. on Bandcamp) distribute no physical media at all. A lot is "pay what you want". Other stuff (like creating a symphony cycle) is not cheap and distributed files may even be pricy. Bleep (Warp Records store) is ridiculously expensive at times. Some of their artists - the big ones even - are also on Bandcamp and sell their files for much lower prices there.
It's another question if you can make a good living from only selling audio. I'd say no, not in this time. Just exceptions. But so what. In my life the price of my IT service also was very heavily a subject of what's currently hot.

Re: The CD Is Now 40 Years Old

Reply #21
I have the first digital release of Michael Jackson's "Thriller" 1983 on CD.  You'll be lucky to find the original on Bandcamp.

Re: The CD Is Now 40 Years Old

Reply #22
I'm witnessing people of my age use vinyl and tape, well they want to feel young again, exclusive, king, whatever.

We are both born in the same decade, but I am at the end of that decade. I never seen the appeal of records or tapes. sure, records might have some level of collector value in some cases, but in terms of general use, CD's are still clearly #1 for a physical format. I did use tapes in the past, for what you basically mentioned recording stuff on radio, and for a while I used to transfer from CD to tape for portable use back when I was still using portable tape players before switching to CD etc.

My experience with old ("bought in the 90s") CDs is: they mostly still work well. Broken CDs extremely rare.

Yeah, the last I knew my original CD's in the 1990's still work to.

I'm wondering why people put their stuff out (say, on Bandcamp) still in 44.1 - Makes no sense IMO... I'd go for 48/96/192

Honestly, there is no real need to go any higher than standard AUDIO CD's 16-bit/44.1 since that already exceeds human hearing. so raising to 48/96/192 will just increase file size with no real world benefits. so it ends up being worse than standard audio CD's at the end of the day.

I guess the younger generation are too used to everything being available at the drop of a hat and for next to nothing.

Yeah, I tend to think that's the trend with today's generations, which seems to go with their more disposable mentality, but I tend to stick to pretty much 1990's or 2000's level of tech for my general music listening. but I suspect it might be a general people thing in that after a person gets to a certain point in life they are pretty much set in their ways and resist change etc.

I think the old ways are better than new ways, at least on some level and in certain cases. because for anyone who wants to hang onto their device for a longer period of time I tend to see battery tech like re-chargeable lithium to be a downgrade vs AA/AAA especially given we got quality NiMh batteries like Eneloop, which are re-chargeable, and these last a long time and even when the battery dies you can easily get quality replacements and be set for many years once again. the problem with lithium, while it's good when it works well, if you plan on using a device for a rather long time, say around 5-10 years or more, once the original manufacturer battery is mostly shot, it can often be difficult to get quality replacement batteries and are stuck with generic junk basically, at best. so in the end... the device can end up being mostly useless after enough time passes solely on lack of battery replacements which won't happen on devices that run on AA/AAA. hell, that's why I got that cheap generic made in china MP3 player since, while it's sort of like the earlier MP3 player tech with navigating through menu's more slowly (and take a little skill to press buttons with timing and in the right spot ;) ), it runs on a single AAA which gives roughly 10-12hrs of battery life on a 800mAh NiMh battery.

but with today's generations it seems like they are all about the smart phones and their disposable tech where they probably don't hang onto a phone more than a few years or so. I generally avoid smart phone stuff since while it can be nice to look up something real quickly, if I plan on spending any time online, which is typically the case, the desktop computer is still hands down the best. but sadly, it seems much of the general public has moved over solely to smart phones as their primary, and maybe only, means of accessing the internet.
For music I suggest (using Foobar2000)... MP3 (LAME) @ V5 (130kbps). NOTE: using on AGPTEK-U3 as of Mar 18th 2021. I use 'fatsort' (on Linux) so MP3's are listed in proper order on AGPTEK-U3.

Re: The CD Is Now 40 Years Old

Reply #23
Anyone having one of these 1st CDs? How does it rip/play today?
Hello rutra80! Wassup? How's it goin'?
I've got some of these old 1st CDs rippin' and playin' just fine! :D
What is the opposite of music?

Re: The CD Is Now 40 Years Old

Reply #24
I have the first digital release of Michael Jackson's "Thriller" 1983 on CD.  You'll be lucky to find the original on Bandcamp.

Pre-emphasis or not? For some old CDs, the record company would be "lucky to find the original" except on the CDs I guess? Thriller was at least mastered to digital tape, so maybe there is a known master to it. But how dit they apply pre-emphasis in those days? Through an analog filter in the glass master machine?

Discogs knows seven 1983 CD issues of Thriller, some with pre-emphasis and some without, some Japanese pressed batches of the physical disc in European and US releases. And a gold disc too.