Forums dot lukpac.org

This is completely fascinating reading:

http://www.stereophile.com/showarchives.cgi?193:0

(Be sure to get all the pages, either in random-access fashion via the right-side menu, or sequentially via the links at the bottom of each page.)

Here you can read the very first reactions to CD from the "golden ears" at Stereophile, the very first protests (from other sources) that "digital sucks," and the early struggles to figure out if the CD was really any good or not. Plus, attempts to predict the future! Relief that cables still make a difference! And much more!

Check it out.

Ryan

Really interesting. Some thoughts...

1) I'm amazed at how much time is spent discussing the merits of the recordings themselves, microphone placement being the key point. This seems to fly in the face of discussions on boards such as this one, where it's generally accepted that the recording is what it is. The notion (of Stereophile) seems to be that recording quality is some type of absolute. Perhaps this is due to some type of rock/classical rift.

2) It's interesting reading Doug Sax's comments. I'm curious to know when his opinion of CD changed, and why. It's also interesting that he seems to imply that there's some type of difference between what's stored on the digital master and what's on the CD itself. Did nobody back then think that playback electronics could possibly have something to do with differences?

3) Looking back, it seems like CD really took a long time to catch on, yet when it did, it was like wildfire. Players were certainly mass-produced by 1991 or so, which is when I got my first one (in a boom box, no less), yet the format had hardly overtaken. I was the first in my family to get a player (and was the only one for at least a year or two), and I remember getting tapes for some time after I did. For a few years many people were still of the school that believed CDs were some type of premium item. Yet by the mid '90s, almost everybody had them, and tapes had all but disappeared in retail outlets. Today we burn CDs (my stars!) without even thinking about it.

My first CDP also came via a boom box, also purchased in 1991. That thing still works.

I guess I was an early adopter -- I got the original Sony "portable" in 1985 with my paper route money (how all-American is that? -- well, except for the Japanese product):



I put "portable" in quotes because you had to buy a huge battery sled to disconnect from the wall socket. (A non-Sony company actually put out a pretty neat little boombox add-on for this player, which was basically a pair of speakers and a battery pack that you could slide the player into. Sounded terrible, but cool anyway.)

1) I'm amazed at how much time is spent discussing the merits of the recordings themselves, microphone placement being the key point. This seems to fly in the face of discussions on boards such as this one, where it's generally accepted that the recording is what it is. The notion (of Stereophile) seems to be that recording quality is some type of absolute. Perhaps this is due to some type of rock/classical rift.

I think that's it exactly. The notion of replicating the live performance seems to be much more important with classical recordings than rock stuff, which (even "live" recordings) is largely a studio creation.

Here's another interesting bit from the archives, which just goes to show that the more things change... :

http://www.stereophile.com/showarchives.cgi?701

Ryan

I got a Denon around 1986 - was that when the first Beatles CDs came out (other than the early Japanese ones?). It eventually died and I replaced it with a California Audio Labs.