[HN Gopher] Compact disc story (1998)
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Compact disc story (1998)
Author : pipeline_peak
Score : 51 points
Date : 2026-02-27 03:33 UTC (19 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.researchgate.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.researchgate.net)
| iggldiggl wrote:
| If you can read German, somebody also wrote a whole dissertation
| on the subject of the CD's development history:
|
| https://publications.rwth-aachen.de/record/95066
| WillAdams wrote:
| One of the cool/obscure things is that the center hole exactly
| matches a then available coin because it made the development
| and testing easier.
| acomjean wrote:
| I remember seeing my friends dad's first cd player. Huge jazz fan
| and it did sound great. Especially the quiet parts (No tape hiss
| or record pops) and easy to use. He bought a couple of cds of
| rock and man they sounded good.
|
| Every other media at the time required some maintenance to sound
| good. Records would scratch, those tape pinch rollers would need
| to be cleaned. Nothing was easy, cds were (skip forward with a
| button push). Cassettes still were the only way to record, better
| for portability and sounded pretty good (we did some a:b testing
| cd vs cassette as kids).
|
| Late 80s, cds were everywhere. I stopped buying records. At my
| highschool radio station someone got a ton of great records from
| his neighbor who was replacing with cds.
|
| My friends dad who liked jazz did lament that a lot of the jazz
| he had in record form would never be re-released as cds. Not
| digital so a lot of music lost to time and a format change.
| WillAdams wrote:
| Early CDs were labeled as to the processes used, a 3 letter
| code As and Ds, so:
|
| AAD == Analog recording, Analog mastering, Digital media
|
| ADD == Analog recording, Digitally re-mastered, Digital Media
|
| DDD == Digital recording, Digitally re-mastered, Digital Media
|
| This is known as a SPARS Code:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPARS_code
|
| Your dad's friends should have imported from Japan --- they
| were big on Jazz, and a lot of my Jazz CDs have spines labeled
| in Japanese on one side and English on the other.
| Projectiboga wrote:
| Late 80s or early 90s there was also a DAD type, which often
| sounded really good.
|
| From that Wiki link-
|
| In practice, DAD was very rare, as many companies (especially
| the well-known classical music labels) used digital tape
| recorders (which were not prohibitively more expensive than
| analog tape recorders) during the editing or mixing stage.
| WillAdams wrote:
| I don't know if I have such a CD --- do you have an example
| which is noted as sound markedly better than other
| editions? (I'd especially be interested in a DAD disc which
| sounds better than an updated DDD disc)
| BoingBoomTschak wrote:
| Why did you write "re-mastered" instead of simply "mastered"
| for ADD/DDD?
| WillAdams wrote:
| Because most of my CDs are older and had previously been
| released as pure analog, so that's how I think of them, and
| that's where my experience is --- fair point though,
| putting parentheses around (re-) would have been better.
| steve1977 wrote:
| Close, but not quite.
|
| The first letter was the recorder used for initial recording,
| say a Studer A800 as an example of an analog multitrack or
| DASH as an example of a digital one).
|
| The second letter was the recorder for the mixdown, i.e.
| usually some 2-channel system like an analog ATR-102 or
| Studer A80 or a digital DAT.
|
| The third letter was the recorder for the master, which for
| CD by definition was always digital. In the early days
| usually a Sony U-matic, which funnily enough was an analog
| video tape format which got reused for digital audio (and is
| the reason for the odd 44.1 kHz sampling rate of the CD).
|
| Edit:
|
| The code was actually always considered a bit meaningless.
|
| For example, you could record on a digital DASH, but mix on
| an analog SSL console and print the mix to a digital
| recorder. That would have been a DDD CD.
|
| On the other hand, you could record on an analog A820, mix on
| a digital Studer desk, print the mix on an analog A80 and
| that would have been a AAD CD.
|
| So, two codes indicating "pure" digital or "pure" analog,
| even though both processes used both technologies.
|
| Or record on a ADAT and mix on a Yamaha 02/R, which would
| have been DDD but probably sounded worse than the AAD
| recorded on a Studer analog tape ;)
| dylan604 wrote:
| > Sony U-matic
|
| 3/4" tape and was the only tape format that had the take up
| reel on the left.
| jcynix wrote:
| > At my highschool radio station someone got a ton of great
| records from his neighbor who was replacing with cds.
|
| History repeats itself: right now you can now buy loads of CDs
| for cheap on eBay.
| werdnapk wrote:
| For a thorough breakdown of everything CDs, here's Technology
| Connections playlist on the subject:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLv0jwu7G_DFWBEyCKt4tK...
| javier_e06 wrote:
| I was one of the bozos believing that the dimensions of the CD
| had to do with Beethoven 9th symphony. :(
|
| Yes I did went and paired up a CD with a cassette this morning
| OMG!!! Is true.
|
| I could not afford the $300.00 USD Sony Portable CD but I friend
| of mine did.
|
| First CD he let me listen to: Genesis "Genesis"
|
| First DDD CD: Peter Gabriel "Security"
|
| That last one probably the most influential music in my
| upbringing.
|
| Funny though, I have hundred of CDs but I don't have those two.
|
| I guess I have to go back to my friends house to listen to them.
| Projectiboga wrote:
| I heard Bob Weir on a Desert Island Discs broadcast with the
| Dead. He said the song Shock the Monkey was the song that got
| him willing to start using MIDI and digital tech, which the
| rest of the group had already embraced. Hearing how one artist
| I loved pulled another artist into a new direction really
| clicked for me as a music lover. I can't figure how to search
| their archive or whether it was an American copy with a
| slightly different title like desert island albums or songs.
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qnmr/episodes/player
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| > First DDD CD:
|
| I remember listening to Donald Fagan's Nightfly. Still sounds
| fantastic, though to nitpick perhaps a tad harsh. Amazing
| thought to have recorded that at approximately the same time as
| the debut of the primitive original IBM PC.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nightfly
| VerifiedReports wrote:
| The record sounds GREAT. I've never heard the CD.
|
| I wonder if The Nightfly has now been ruined with dynamic
| compression (AKA "remastered") like everything else over the
| last couple decades.
|
| My CD player came with Brothers in Arms by Dire Straits, as a
| demo of dynamic range. That album (a digital recording) has,
| shamefully, been "remastered" and dynamically compressed.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| My uncle had the vinyl, and I got the CD a couple of years
| later. I see it has "manufactured by Columbia House" on the
| back. ;-) No loudness war back then, but the treble is
| brighter than most recordings of the time, leading to a
| potential tweaking of the knob for the album.
| VerifiedReports wrote:
| Similar story! The first disc (and song) I heard was "Let's
| Dance," David Bowie.
|
| I have hundreds of discs, but only have Let's Dance on vinyl.
|
| I also have the second pop digital recording ever, The Nightly
| by Donald Fagen, only on vinyl. I use it to show people how
| good records can sound.
|
| I'm glad I bought and kept so much music when I did, because
| now the labels have destroyed everything with dynamic (not
| data) compression. It's disgusting. Now that everyone has dirt-
| cheap access to pristine recording & playback technology, music
| sounds like absolute shit because some suits thought it needed
| to sound "louder."
|
| It's possibly one of the biggest but least-understood crimes
| against art in all of history.
| jeffreygoesto wrote:
| A Philips engineer visited our chair end of the 90s and told the
| same about the size "the cassette could be handled with one hand,
| let's keep that". He also told us they designed their delicate
| test equipment so that it would fit on a 1st class seat but not
| 2nd, so when they had to sit next to it during the flight (much
| too sensitive stuff to check in), management had to book them 1st
| class flights to Japan. ;)
| encom wrote:
| I'm getting blocked by ClownFlare.
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20180208182825/https://www.resea...
| VerifiedReports wrote:
| Got that too. But then when I hit Back, I somehow ended up on
| the page.
|
| WTH.
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