How the Compact Disc Changed the Music Industry

CDs debuted in the United States 40 years ago this week, and now they're making a comeback.

I purchased my first CD player and first CD in late 1986. I think I paid around $200 USD for the basic CD player (play, pause, forward or backward one 'track') and probably $20 for the CD - a full digital recording (DDD) of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture...

Later that evening I hooked it up to my measley 40 Watts/Channel Stereo system with speakers rated for 60W and proceeded with the "destruction test" of the real cannons firing, with the volume control set about 1/2 way just to be safe.

Yes, my speakers and stereo survived but my neighbors probably wondered what the heck was that noise!

I also purchased a Billy Joel CD at the same time.

I amassed a ~300 CD collection over the next many years before MP3's and digital streaming on the Internet became the norm.

Geez... now that I try to remember, I can't remember the first one. I'm sure it could have been this one:



Fittingly, one of the first to be completely digitally recorded.

I think my first CD was Rumours by Fleetwood Mac, i'm pretty sure Brothers in Arms was in the first 10 or so.
I actually had bought about 4 or 5 CDs before i got a CD player.

From memory the CDs were around $32 each, my CD player (a Marantz CD-75DXII) cost around $800 (and that was a very good price at the time).

---

Grant
Darwin NT

Love Over Gold - Dire Straits.

Still got it, and still use it to wake the neighbours when I feel the urge.

---

Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

Decided it was a good way to limit damage to my original 'blue prism' album.
That album was 50 years old on the 1st.

I played my Pink Floyd collection yesterday while working away and today it's my Dire Straits collection.

But if I want to wake the neighbours up I'd play either AC/DC or Nickelback. :;-)

Cheers.