On 8th March 1979, Philips revealed the very first Compact Disc (CD) and CD player prototype to the press at Eindhoven, Netherlands. The CD player prototype had an LED display and four buttons, and a top-loading mechanism. It was called the "Pinkeltje" and it set in motion one of the most seismic shifts in the history of the recorded music industry.
Philips and Sony were both separately developing digital disc technology during the 1970s, and the two technology innovators from Europe and Japan joined forces to create the standard for the CD. Philips had the physical format for the discs, while Sony offered their expertise in digital error correction.
It was a rapid music revolution and made good on the inventors' promise of being "the biggest step forward in sound reproduction since the invention of the gramophone" (What Hi-Fi?, June 1983).
The format's benefits over the established vinyl – compact size, long life, resistance to scratches and dust, low noise levels – certainly helped quickly win over music fans.
Sift through the pages of our What Hi-Fi? magazine archive for 1983 and you'll find dozens (maybe hundreds) of reviews of turntables, cartridges, tonearms, cassette tapes and cassette players. You'll also see news snippets here and there about the advent of CD and how the record labels planned to make albums available on this new digital format.
The coverage in the magazine is all-analogue until, like the proverbial London buses, What Hi-Fi? published a whole (free) supplement dedicated to CD players in the October 1983 issue.
In this special supplement we tested 11 new CD players, alongside technical information on the new format, CD album reviews, and opinion pieces arguing for and against the new format from respected hi-fi writers of the time, Dave Prakel and Alvin Gold.
The 11 player "supertest" featured CD players from Akai, Fisher, Hitachi, Marantz (which at the time was owned by Philips), Philips, Pioneer, Sharp, Sony and Toshiba, all of which were priced between £480 to £649 (today's equivalent being around £2100 to £2800).
We rated each disc player's construction, features and sound quality, with an overall rating (out of four!) based on our core ethos: value for money.
There were two camps of CD players: one that followed the 14-bit coding used by Philips that employed "oversampling" to achieve the lowest levels of noise and distortion (and were cheaper to make); while others followed Sony's 16-bit technique, which pushed component technology to its limits and tended to be more expensive to produce.
Reading through the reviews, it's the Philips CD100 that came out as the clear winner for sound quality.
We called it a "first-rate performer" that delivered a "smooth sound", a "wide dynamic range", natural voices and a "good driving punch". Philips was also praised for offering the minimalist, slimline size that befitted the nature of the new compact disc, which was one of the promised benefits over a cumbersome racks-based vinyl system.
Conversely, the Sony CDP-101 was heralded more for its "superb internal engineering" that allowed for servicing and repair, while it also offered a headphone socket and the one thing that none of the other players included: a remote control.
Last year, I was lucky enough to visit the Philips museum in the company's home town of Eindhoven where I saw first-hand that very first Philips CD100 from 1983. You can see the photos in the gallery above.
Also on display, under a glass case, was the early "Pinkeltje" protoype, looking a little worse for wear and, on top of it, a very worn CD disc that can only be the very first 11.5cm disc shown in that 1979 press demo.
Other prototype components were also on show, and it was incredible to see a piece of history that seems so recent – my teenage years were rife with CDs – and marvel at how futuristic and fully-formed the CD player was when it launched. No wonder that the adoption of the format spread like wildfire.
We all know how CD's story went. At the turn of the millennium, the CD was at its peak, accounting for 90% of the music industry’s revenue. But at the same time, another digital revolution was happening, the iPod, downloads and, eventually, the rise of music streaming.
We're celebrating 50 years of What Hi-Fi? this year, and the Compact Disc, since its inaugural prototype unveiling and release in 1983, is the dominant format of our history.
It's hard to think of just how innovative and impactful the Compact Disc and CD player were when they first launched, especially when today, there are so many formats (vinyl, CDs, digital radio, hi-res streaming, even cassettes) that sit alongside each other and can be consumed concurrently.
It's even more amazing to think that vinyl has come back with a vengeance and overtaken CD sales by quite a margin.
In 1983, the jury was still out on the quality of CDs and CD players, and if this new digital format would (or could) really replace the analogue medium in terms of technical and musical merits, not to mention perceived value and and emotional enjoyment. I'll leave you with the words of Dave Prakel and Alvin Gold, who take either sides of the argument and ponder the Compact Disc's potentials and pitfalls...
[Below, click on the arrow sign on the bottom-left corner to read the full-size text.]
MORE:
The best 25 CD players of What Hi-Fi?'s lifetime
33 debut products that defined hi-fi history
The best CD players we've tested that you can buy today
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