1983 review of Sony's first-ever CD player unearthed: hindsight's a beautiful thing
By Ross Miller 
posted January 15th 2010 1:42AM
posted January 15th 2010 1:42AM
Here's a little bit of color for you. The gang at Retro Thing have brought our attention to a republished 1983 Stereophile review of the Sony CDP-101, the first-ever CD player. The results were that the audio quality was promising but not stellar, and the $1,000 (!) cost of entry for the device made it even less alluring. Knowing how history unfolded, we can't help but chuckle a bit at the worry that CDs would in the near-term become obsolete by another physical disc medium, but hey, we can't blame them for not being psychic. Just think, one day our own reviews will be discovered for the future to laugh about -- paying over $500 for a device that doesn't do multitouch on its native apps? What's up with that? Find yourself 15 to 30 minutes of quiet time and hit up the source link for a blast from the past.
you just had to get in your bit against the nexus one didn't you?
@Seven But just think: Engadget's digs at Android-sans-multitouch will seem dated and bizarre 20 years from now. Our kids will be like, "What's the big deal? Keyboard, touchscreen, multitouch--those were all crap compared to (whatever near-telepathic UI technologies they're using)."
@Seven
Maybe he thought paying $600 for a phone that doesnt do MMS or copy and paste wasn't such a bad thing.
@Seven
Yes, even in an article about a CD player from 1983 they managed to squeeze in some useless Apple propaganda.
After 3 months I've had it. Getting my gadget news elsewhere from now on.
@Seven who cares what other people think. Love the device that you own and move on! I love my iPhone - and I don't get upset when other people talk about its inability to run multiple apps like the Palm Pre is able to do. I just jailbreak my phone - remain silent - and run backgrounder.
In the end - fanboys are actually losers.
@sintricate I love how the people who dislike the iPhone news the most are always the first to bring it into the conversation.
@espentan
wow 3 months!! Lighten up Francis, they were just making a joke.
@sintricate
doesn't place calls either.
or maybe thats the latest app - The Call Failed (No Service) App - it is designed so that you don't just pick up the phone and call someone, you need time to formulate your thoughts - here's how it works...
Oh, I need to call Stephen (not a real person), Go to favorites, call - boom Call Failed - full 3g goes down to No Service - now is the time to put your thoughts together, decide WHAT you want to tell Stephen, wait another 30 seconds, and NOW you can place your call.
It is designed to make America's conversations more lucid,
and it comes free with your phone!
@espentan
You will be missed. Your unique and insightful comments about how much you hate the iPhone cannot be duplicated by anyone else on the whole Internet.
@Seven
I am sure this website is "Made on a Mac".
It is the only explanation for why it remains so broken nearly two months after they cursed the public with it.
Can we go back to the old, functional, Engadget site yet?
@sintricate
Yeah, why didn't he make a snarky comment about the iPhone. It was missing a lot more things that most phones had in 2007.
@espentan What is the best site out there for gadget? I have it with this crap site
What, you actually have to use your hands? That's like a baby's toy!
@JPeak Sorry Mcfly, I can see where you were going with the comment but it fails since the only difference between vhs players and the blu-ray players we use today is the media format has changed.
We still have to use our hands, swap discs, forward, rewing, stop etc... The only thing different is that we can instantaneously skip scenes or access whatever scene we want.
I'm sorry if I sound callous... I'm just pissed because I don't think we'll be able to achieve hover conversion for our cars by the 2015 deadline.
@HC
Whoa...take it easy. Go watch Back to the Future part 2.
@nedy78
LOL you gotta love it when people get all serious not getting references!!
Damn, son!
@Antithesis
Most insightful comment ever right there..
What about paying $600 for a device that doesn't even let you load apps? Nope, then it's for your own good.
paying over $500 for a device that can't transfer a file over blutooth? or that has a 3mp cam? or how abt that lousy screen resolution?
seriously, why the remark against Nexus One? i honestly think that both those devices are excellent!
and back on topic, > i think the PC reviews are gonna be just hilarious after a decade or so :)
I bought a Yamaha CDX-1 by the end of 1983 instead, and it was much better.
@JeanMichel Decombe
This thing looks like the style matches the Sony STR-AV360 that I'm currently using. I knew it was old when my grandfather gave it to me, but not that old.
Man I got my first Sony CD player in the summer of 1985. I must have been a late adopter. It was hard to find disc's until around 88 if I remember correctly.
@fastm3driver
Find disc's what?
@vman81 CD's. In 85 there were very few places sell CD's and the one that did it was hard to find albums. For instance the complete Led Zeppelin collection was not available and I remember buying a Rolling Stones compilation CD because I couldn't find the album it was suppose to be on. Around this time I also remember getting a Police CD that looked correct but when played was the Stones "Their Satanic Majesties Request !" Funny. I kept it because I figured it would be worth something some day but I have no idea where it is now.
Growing up in New England I didn't even see a Best Buy or a Walmart till the mid 90's.
@fastm3driver
I believe you misunderstood his comment. His comment was intended to point out your grammatical error of using an apostrophe to indicate a plural. Your use of an apostrophe actually indicates possession, which is the incorrect usage there.
So instead of "CD's" it should be "CDs."
-Your Friendly Mr. Master of the Obvious
@fastm3driver Heh, I'm a ferocious grammar Nazi myself, yet it is strangely less fulfilling to observe others at work. Kudos anyway.
@patsy Ah. Except being an engineer I am exempt from spelling and grammatical errors unless they are on a production drawing. I probably should have mentioned that. (yes, I ended the sentence with a preposition)
Also, note the time of posting 2am
Well, the 1000$ does include a Remote Control Module.
@degofedal
Still looks better built than some of the products they have out today.Even the expensive stuff.
my first CD player was the Sega MegaCD....
@mocax
If you never had said that I would never have remembered that it was indeed my first exposure to CDs.
Does anybody remember Sega TV ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_Channel )
We are only now catching up to that fantasy.
Quote of the article.
"The disc goes in label-side up, playing-side down. "
hahaha
@dds1043 I know! Fact is, we were used to vinyl before that, where the side being played is the one that's facing up.
@dds1043
You laugh, but it puzzled a hell of a lot of people.
@(Unverified) I was born in 1986 if that clears up anything :)
@dds1043 Our Pioneer 5 CD Changer had us putting the discs in data side up into the cartridge. I was henceforth confused when we got a 486 with a 2x CD-ROM drive.
@dds1043: I think the quote of the article was this:
"Audiophiles will however be dismayed to note that there is nothing on it to adjust; there isn't even a knob to diddle."
I think that sums up most audiophiles quite nicely.
or paying $500 for a device that couldn't copy/paste. The N1/Stock Android will get multi-touch eventually and I don't think it's that big of a deal (aside from helping with the virtual keyboard a bit). Not having copy/paste on the iPhone was a huge deal for a lot of users.
Also, way to flame bait :/ Nice job guys.
@andthemaniam well u r 1 year late.
please try again.
@andthemaniam
Wrong. It was a huge deal for bloggers who needed something to write about, and it was a huge deal for the haters who didn't / couldn't own iphones as it gave them a stick to use against those more fortunate.
You think lack of copy / paste is on a par with lack or multitouch? Hardly.
@yes
yo a e
@yes - Actually, Apple was a year late ( well, a year and a half late) to offer a feature a lot of users wanted. Android's been out for a bit over a year, so it's the same time frame.
@pukerocket - I disagree. Not being able to copy/paste text and urls would be a huge pain for me and I know a lot of iPhone users felt the same. I didn't say it was on par with multi-touch, but it was a feature a lot of people wanted and iPhone lacked it (like multi-touch on stock Android). Your feelings about copy/paste then are the same as my feelings about multi-touch now, I don't think it's a big deal that it's not there, but that's not to say stock Android shouldn't have it.
@andthemaniam My Android has multitouch, sorry ;)
@Rebajas - I forgot that they do outside the US, my bad :D That's what doesn't make sense here, Google should just say it's a legal matter (if it is) and then the speculation would be over.
What's a cd? Do you have to rewind them?
@smartmouth
Hah! But you have to keep them clean, just like vinyl. Like the buggy whip, people made "cleaning kits".
back then it also took more than 2 hours to burn a cd. now you can burn a dvd in 2 minutes.
@va jj
2 minutes?