Optical Recording — The first CD players

The first CD players

Sony and Philips developed their own players. They had become competitors again.

Nevertheless, they did support each other in a remarkable way. It was very important for their products to be launched onto the market at the same time. This would give the consumers confidence that the CD was a universal standard. The record companies would then soon publish an extensive repertoire on CD.

Both manufacturers agreed therefore that essential electronics components would be interchangeable. If either company was not ready on time, it would be able to use components from the other temporarily. In order to ensure that the electronics were inter­changeable, the companies had to exchange information about the functioning of their product. As a result, both manufacturers were always fully aware of the other’s progress.

The two manufacturers worked independently on the miniaturization of the electronics. The cubic meter of circuits in the test set-up was integrated onto the surface of a small number of integrated circuits (ICs). That was quite a job because the IC for the sound coding and error correction was the largest chip that had ever been incorporated into a consumer product.

Philips managed to work in total secrecy on an additional component that would create a marked improvement in the quality of the CD reproduction. This involved ‘oversampling’, which enabled a lower noise level to be achieved.

The oversampling gave Philips a leading edge. However, this was overshadowed by a setback in the manufacture of the ICs. It turned out to be difficult to manufacture the large IC for the error correction. The number of rejects in production was too high, with the result that the necessary quantities could not be produced. As a result, Philips had to use a Sony component in its first CD player.

In April 1982, Philips was able to show the first production series of CD players. Lou Ottens saw his ideas realized. "From now on, the conventional record player is obsolete," he said on this occasion.