"30 Years of Perfect Sound Forever
Eagerly anticipated since the digital audio revolution in recording studios in the late 1970s, Sony announced the CDP-101, the world's first Compact Disc player, on October 1st, 1982.
The Compact Disc was developed in concert by Sony, who handled the DSP, and by Philips, who had experience with optical discs. Sony and Philips each owned large record companies as well as electronics divisions, so they had everything to gain. Other record companies hoped it would all go away, wanting us to pay money for more of the same old LPs instead of new CD players and having to dual-inventory recordings.
Philips dubbed the Compact Disc as "Perfect Sound Forever," and they weren't kidding. My 30-year-old CDs still sound incredible, and lost to history after video replaced music in the late 1980s for most people's home entertainment is that CDs still offer the best possible sound today, still representing a completely transparent window to the original recording.
CDs as a recording medium are completely uncompressed, unadulterated and bit-for-bit accurate, even if you boil them or drill a hole through them."
