The Sony CDP-101 cost around $1,060 at today’s exchange rate, or around $3,700 adjusted for inflation.
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As for this first CD player hardware release for consumers from Sony. It wasn’t perfect, of course, and Wikipedia points out one particular limitation of the CDP-101: It had just one DAC for both left and right audio channels due to the high cost of these converters. Without sample-and-hold circuitry, this meant the stereo channels were approximately 11 μs out of sync.
So, CDs came with many attractive promises, most importantly in the context of the early 1980s – providing digital music data that was read by a laser and wouldn’t wear. CDs also offered near-instant track selection, skipping, and replay. But most consumers would have to wait a few years: firstly for the price of player hardware to approach an acceptable level, and secondly for CD albums to become the norm for new releases and classic remasters.
Sony worked with CBS to have 50 CD albums on the shelves when the CDP-101 debuted in Japan. You’d think that six months later, when Philips joined in, and we saw the worldwide launch, that the catalog would have grown. Surprisingly, the ‘western’ launch was backed by just 16 titles.
Transparent wall-mounted CD player raises over $540,000 on Kickstarter
Key considerations
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Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/storage/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/storage/sony-released-the-first-cd-audio-player-on-this-day-in-1982-player-cost-usd3-700-when-adjusted-for-inflation-but-it-would-be-another-decade-before-the-cd-rom-driven-multimedia-pc-era-began#main
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Informational only. No financial advice. Do your own research.