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Happy Birthday Compact Disc

Written by Dave Horvath @ 16 Aug 2007 7:27 User comments (12)

Happy Birthday Compact Disc For some of us it doesn't seem all that long ago, but the revolutionary Compact Disc is officially 25 years old. Although, development of the disc dates back many years, the official date in which the Compact Disc was unleashed upon the world stands at August 17, 1982.
The format was co-developed by Philips and Sony and opened up a new pressing plant in Hanover, Germany. The very first audio CD to be pressed at that plant intended for production belonged to ABBA's The Visitors. Although production of the Compact Disc began in August of 1982, it wasn't offically brought to the market, only in Japan, until November of the same year. The US and Europe didn't see this bright new format until March of 1983.

It seems the UK took hold of the format almost immediately and in 1985, Dire Straits released their album Brothers in Arms which was bought up by early adopters of the format. This milestone was important because it marked the first time a CD was produced using a digital master.



Other digital albums proved to be even more popular with Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon rumored to have its own CD pressing plant to keep up with demand for the hyperdimensional sounds of Floyd.

Originally in 1979, Sony and philips intended to unleash a 11.5cm disc to the masses capable of storing an hours worth of music, but later was scrapped in favor of the 12cm disc holding 74 minutes of digital audio.

To this day, CD still remains the majority in legally purchased music formats. Some 200 billion have been sold in its 25 years, but its global domination is slowly being etched away by legal and illegal downloading.

Source:
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12 user comments

116.8.2007 19:43

Happy Birthday Beloved CD. Now ill give you untill your about 29 years old before you die

216.8.2007 20:03

death is near mr. cd lol,

79? man i was born in that year, 83? man if i saw this disc i would of thought it was a UFO.

317.8.2007 02:36

It's time Mr.CD to retire & blame poor sales on piracy. Get with the times the digital age is here now. *waves at Mr.CD bye bye* LOL

417.8.2007 05:14
Sooner26c
Inactive

One time I was playing with one of my kids who was three years old at the time. I was getting ready to play an LP record on the stereo, and the kid comes up and says, "I wanna look at the big CD."
IMO, on good audio equipment, vinyl still sounds better than CDs.

517.8.2007 06:07

25 years already? Man I'm, getting old. Where does the time go? Let me dust off my records and get misty eyed for awhile here....

617.8.2007 12:20
morguex
Inactive

Sooner22c
I agree with you 100 percent.
Vinyl sounds better than any cd or dvd could hope to.
CDs and Dvd's might be louder, but trust me they are not better.
Peace all

717.8.2007 19:50

Wow, when I was a boy, I remembered how much cd burners cost..$300. Now look how much CDs are today. So cheap, yet I hardly use them. I'm more of a dvd man now. :)

817.8.2007 22:06

i was just recalling when they first introduced stereo. Sigh. Then those golden years of single transistor radios. People muttered "Germanium" at each other and then fluffed up their chests cos they were in the know.

And still the best stereo is electro-mechanical with valves.

Don't care what they say, my ears listen in wave form and cd's are in stepped digital.

i wonder if anyone ever experimented with very high speed turntables so that the "needle" rested on a shockwave much like the high speed metal lathe do (they don't cut, they deform - which i found quite fascinating)?

918.8.2007 10:34

i agree The old crystal mecanical radios are the best i got my old imperial made back in the 60 and fasinating enought it works better than the best radio Sony has to offer

1018.8.2007 11:50

I like the CD and really don't think it's going to die in a few years. It's really convenient to buy a CD and rip the music from it and have a physical backup for the songs. Who needs iTunes lol

1121.8.2007 21:10

Quote:
To this day, CD still remains the majority in legally purchased music formats. Some 200 billion have been sold in its 25 years, but its global domination is slowly being etched away by legal and illegal downloading.
Itd time is comming to a close because new technology is comming like the CD came to take over the cassette.

1222.4.2008 13:23

I certainly hope that the audio CD format does not go away any time soon. There's something to be said about owning an actual physical product. Not to mention the fact that I can put my CD into any player, and it will work. It would be nice if they offered a legally downloadable ISO, to create the audio CD yourself. This is one purchase I would be interested in making. The same cannot be said for most of the legally available downloads out there, which have some kind of DRM implemented, to control how you use them. And then there is the fidelity of any recordings available for download. Usually, they have to normalize the recording, lowering its dynamic range. This is so that it compresses well. The compression itself (unless it's FLAC) may take away from the sound the artists and recording engineers meant for the piece to sound. Unfortunately, the majority of users today get their music solely from download sources, so may not have experienced what true fidelity and great dynamic range can add to a musical piece.

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