The press has been writing about new audio technology since the Edison phonograph. In 1877 Scientific American reported that "Mr. Thomas A. Edison recently came into this office, placed a little machine on our desk, turned a crank….We have already pointed out the startling possibility of the voices of the dead being reheard through this device and…other results just as astonishing."
On October 1, 1982, there was another technology story to write when Sony released the first commercial CD player.
The robot narrator for this Sony commercial sounds a great deal like John Cleese.
Here is how the New York Times described compact discs in 1982:
"The CD's are coming! The CD's are coming! Not the banking CD's, but
the audio compact disks. The hoopla for the new technology is evident
in the technical magazines, which are busy reviewing the equipment for
playing the disks. The record companies are busy preparing the disks,
which are expected to be available commercially in this country
sometime after their introduction in Europe in March.The disks, drawn from digitally recorded masters, use only one side,
are a little over four inches in diameter, are played by a laser
instead of a stylus and contain about an hour's worth of music. They
are reported to be impervious to wear or mishandling and have surfaces
that are absolutely silent and afford great dynamic range. Of course,
a special machine is needed to play them, and many manufacturers are
already in the field, with Sony leading the way."
The first commercial CD album, "52nd Street" by Billy Joel, was
introduced at the same time as the first compact disc player. Music
reviewers soon began to debate what sounds better: vinyl records or
CDs?