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Ten years of the Compact Disc Introduced at the end of 1982, the Compact Disc has now become so popular all over the world that it can justifiably be described as the most successful audio development of the century. This story gives some of its history. ruary 1983, more than 35,000 CD players were sold in Japan, from manufacturers such as Sony, Marantz (Philips), Hitachi, Denon, Sharp, Pioneer, Technics, Onkyo and Kenwood, along with 5 million CDs, making an average of 14 per CD player. World standardisation While slow to begin with, sales of Compact Discs eventually exceeded all expectations. Prior to its introduction in 1982, Sony and Philips were hoping that more than 10 million CDs would be sold worldwide in 1985 but within a year they had revised their forecast to 15 million. Sony went as far as to predict that sales of 20 million CDs could be achieved in 1985. In the end, however, everyone proved to be way off the mark, as CD sales in 1985 totalled 59 million, rising to 136 million in 1986. Sales of CD players also rose rapidly, totalling 3 million in 1985 and 9 million in 1986, a number that earlier Philips forecasts had suggested would not be reached until 1990. 8 SILICON CHIP The Compact Disc was jointly developed by Philips and Sony, and was launched on the Japanese market in November 1982 and four months later in Europe, the USA and Australia. At its European launch, the General Manager of Sony's HiFi Audio Division, Noboyuki Idei, called the Compact Disc "the sound carrier of the century'' ... "We launched the Compact Disc four months ago in Japan and the reaction from the consumer was far better than we had anticipated. But the ultimate growth of the system will largely depend on the software. So the provision of software is our most important objective for the near future". Between November 1982 and Feb- Philips and Sony were not the only ones working on a "digital gramophone record" at the end of the seventies but most eventually dropped out, leaving only the Philips/Sony combination, JVC and Telefunken still in the race. JVC tried to make a breakthrough with AHD (Audio High Density), the audio counterpart of the VHD (Video High Density) video disc sys- TOP OF THE PAGE: the first Philips CD player to be seen in Australia was the top loading CD200. It was closely followed by the CD202. 1 We have done all we can ... now it's up to you! When we in 1989 decided to design Australia's finest range ofloudspeakers, we soon realised the potential we had on our hands. By designing and building the speakers in Australia, and by using the ultimate drivers available, we could challenge the best loudspeakers from around the world. With this in mind we now set out to achieve our go:tl. The choice of drivers was obvious: DYNAUDIO. They are known the world over as being the finest drivers available. The high cost however, makes their use prohibitive for those speaker manufacturers who only produce mass market speakers. Our intention though, was not to make another mass market range ofloudspeakers, but rather Australia's finest. The next step was to appoint a design team. The ideal team should have not only the best technical qualifications and facilities, but also a great love and appreciation for music. With the design team chosen, work began in February 1990. Now followed an exhaustive but rewarding 14 months of intensive research and development. Numerous prototypes were built and refined until each model fulfilled its objectives: Being the finest in its class. The listening panel comprised not only the design team, but also Hi-Fi critics and leading audio dealers from around the country. Each prototype was compared against the more expensive imported equivalents until the design team was fully satisfied. In June 1991 Australia's finest range of loudspeakers was released : DYNAUDIO IMAGE. WE HAVE DONE AIL WE CAN ..... NOW IT'S UP TO YOU ! Acknowledgements: Acoustical Design: Glen Leembrugen & David Connor , Sydney Australia Dynaudio Drivers: Mark Thorup & Peter Larsen, Skanderbarg Denmark So/en Capaciwrs: Dennis QueUet, Quebec Canada Bi-wiring Terniinals : Ben Fan, Taipei Taiwan Monster Cable : Noel Lee , San Fransisco USA Cabinet Builder: Scott Krix, Hackham South Australia Listemng Panel: Glen Leembruggen, David Connor, Pat Hayes, Les Cardilini, Philippe Luder, Dahl Murphy, Carlo Di Martino, Craig McNeil, Michael Henriksen , David.Jacobs , Tom Manning For more infunnation and name of nearest dealer please contact: Scan Audio Pty. Ltd. , P.O. Box 242, Hawthorn Vic 3122 Ph. (03) 429 2199 Fax (03) 429 9309 The or~ginal model released in early 1983 by Sony in Australia was the CDP101. Retailing for more than $1000, it came with a remote control. ' while Telefunken attempted to tern, do the same with the "Mini Disc" (mechanical scanning and 14-bit resolution). But both JVC and Telefunken finally had to concede victory to the Compact Disc. In its original form, the Compact Disc developed by Philips had a diameter of 11. 5cm and a resolution of · 14 bits (16,384 digital steps). Sony's DAD, the Digital Audio Disc, had a 30cm diameter disc - like the LP which could contain over 13 hours of music. Nb company apart from Philips had hit upon the idea of developing a much smaller disc. Philips and Sony jointly decided to increase the diameter and resolution of the Compact Disc to 12cm and 16 bits respectively (65,536 digital steps). The slightly larger diameter was necessary for a longer playing time (the story goes that Beethoven's 9th, which is very popular in Japan, had to fit onto one CD) but had to be kept small enough to ensure that it would still fit into the wide breast pocket of the Japanese shirt. They also decided to increase to resolution from 14 to 16 bits, despite - 10 SILICON CHIP duction of the video disc (VLP), it had already been suggested that· the principle of the video disc could.be used in the future for a new (analog) optical audio long-play disc. Initially, attempts were made to produce a 4channel audio long-play disc with a playing time of one hour on the basis of broadband frequency modulation. It sounded good but it wasn't ideal. It wasn't until the second half of the seventies, that the idea of recording sound digitally and applying error correction emerged. In 1978, the basic concept ofa Compact Disc with a playing time of one hour was ready and a prototype was shown to Philips' Board of Management. A very important role in promoting the concept was played by Corvan der Klugt, at the time a member of the Board of Management and later on President of Philips. He was convinced that Philips alone would never succeed in making the Compact Disc a world standard. the fact that there were no reasonably priced ·16-bit DI A converters available at the time. The suspicion that critical music lovers would not be satisfied with 14-bit resolution was the deciding factor. Because Philips was not sure that it would have 16-bit Japanese cooperation DI A converters available in time for the CD's introduction, the technique Cooperation with a Japanese comof "oversampling" (digital-filter) was pany seemed to him to be an absolute developed. With this step, Philips ini- necessity. Sony appeared to be the tially attracted criticism from almost most suitable partner, partly because the entire electronics industry, par- of his personal relationship with ticularly Japan. Sony's Akio Morita and that compaThe Japanese, who did not have ny's existing expertise in the field of oversampling, were taken aback by digital technology. In fact, Sony had this development (which fell outside already developed a PCM processor, the CD standard). However, the criti- with which digital tape recordings cism was short-lived, because the could be made. benefits of oversampling became patCorvan der Klugt succeeded in conently clear. Barely two years later, Jap- vincing Morita of the possibilities of · anese CD players with two times over- . the Compact Disc and of the need for sampling appeared, but soon four cooperation and standardisation. This times oversampling was the norm. cooperation between Philips and Sony began officially in the summer of 1979, Initial developments several months after Philips had preLong before anyone had ever sented the Compact Disc to the interthought of the Compact Disc, Philips national press for the first time. was working on a possible successor At the end of the seventies, the to the LP. In 1972, during the intro- Digital Audio Disc Committee (DAD Committee) was founded in Japan. It was a sub-department of MITI, the Japanese Ministry of International " The first Philips CD Trade and Industry. And when, in player was the CDMay 1980, MITI organised a meeting 100, a top loader with spartan facilities. It of the DAD Committee, the demon:was used as the basis stration given by Philips and Sony for many players made such an impression that the sysoriginating from tems presented by rival companies Europe & England. were swept from the table. But although the hardware industry was left with no other option but to accept the licenses offered, the soft- Bitstream is now used in almost all ,Philips CD players and by a large number of other manufacturers. Worldwide success 0 Many early CD players had a vertical front loading format which enabled you to see the spinning disc. However, this configuration was troubled by shock and vibration and quickly gave way to the drawer loading scheme now used universally. ware industry continued to put up a fight. The major record companies decided to boycott the Compact Disc, mainly because of a royalty ofUS$0.03 that Philips and Sony were claiming on each CD. Morita considered drops ping the royalty claim but Philips wouldn't hear of it and they eventually got what they wanted. Convinced of their imminent success, Philips and Sony presented the Compact Disc at the Festival du Son in Paris in March 1981 and a month later gave a spectacular presentation to the press in Salzburg, at the invitation of conductor Herbert von Karajan. Von Karajan himself was so impressed by the Compact Disc's quality and possibilities that he became one of its main promoters. In August 1981, the Compact Disc was presented at the Berlin Funkausstellung, and in October of that year it was the major attraction at the Japanese Audio Fair. At the beginning of 1982 30 licences had been issued to hardware manufacturers and 10 to software manufacturers. In the course of 1982 the Compact Disc was to be seen at exhibitions all over the world. In August 1982, PolyGram's CD factory in Hanover was opened by the pianist Claudio Arrau. Shortly afterwards, the first 300,000 CDs (approximately 150 titles, mainly classical) were shipped to Japan. Directly after the Japanese Audio Fair in October 1982, the Compact Disc was brought onto the market in Japan. DIA converter, the TDA 1541. By combining four times oversampling and noise shaping, a theoretical resolution of 18 bits could be achieved. In Japan, however, some manufacturers, such as Yamaha, were using eight times oversampling and 18~bit converters. Nevertheless, Philips chose to stick with 16 bits, noise shaping and four times oversampling. Bitstream Then Philips introduced a completely new conversion technique, called "Bitstream", at the Electronics Show in Japan in October 1989. With Bitstream DI A conversion, the digital samples are converted with a highspeed (11.28996 MHz) 1-bit DIA converter. The technique is claimed to eliminate the principal causes of non-linearity and zero-crossing distortion in DI A conversion. In Japan, they were so impressed by this advanced technique that a 'Technology Award' was presented to Philips. Ten years after its introduction, the Compact Disc can be considered a gigantic worldwide success. In technical and musical terms, the 1992style CD player is a long way from the models released 10 years ago. Apart from the many new techniques developed for CD and the related improvements in sound quality, ease of use has also been dramatically improved. The Philips CD-100 of 10 years ago could do little more than play, fast search and skip - the latter only very slowly. If we consider the numerous extra options now available (preprogramming, repeat, favourite track selection, etc), together with all the possibilities ofremote control and portable players, it can be said that the CD player has become "the audio machine of the century". It far exceeded Philips' and Sony's wildest dreams. Sales of CDs have increased phenomenally in the last few years. In the Netherlands alone, 39.2 million CDs were sold in 1991, compared with 1.3 million LPs. The number of recordings issued on CD increased from 12,200 in 1989 to 13,000 in 1990 and to 14,300 in 1991. In Australia, some 800,000 CD players have now been sold and 40% of all households have at least one CD player. Worldwide, over 1 billion CDs were sold in 1991, compared with only 170 million LPs. Acknowledgement Our thanks to George Sprague of the Philips Press Office for the material used in this story. SC VIDEO & T.V. SERVICE PERSONNEL TV & VIDEO FAULT LIBRARIES AVAILABLE AS PRINTED MANUALS $85 +P/H BOTH MANUALS T.V. & VIDEO $145 +P/H OR AS A PROGRAM FOR IBM COMPATIBLES OR AS AN APPLICATION PROGRAM FOR D-BASE Ill PLUS FOR MORE INFO. CONTACT TECHNICAL APPLICATIONS PO BOX 137 KENMORE 4069 OR FAX/PHONE (07) 378 1064 Further developments In 1984, Philips produced a 16-bit DECEMBER 1992 11