When was CDs introduced? Why is there less distortion in CDs as compared to LPs?
The first COMPACT Discs were developed in the Netherlands by Philips over a period of 15 years and demonstrated at the Salzburg Festival in April 1980 by Herbert von Karajan, who declared that `all else is gaslight’. The groove less miniature 12 cm discs, playing time ’15 mins, use a laser beam to ‘read’ digitally-encoded information, a system which eliminates all extraneous noise and enables them to be played indefinitely. Philips entered into an agreement with Sony, who launched the first compact disc players in October 1982 in Japan. Sony, Philips and three and other Japanese companies marketed the players in Britain. France, W. Germany and Holland on 1 March 1983, backed by some 300 Polygram compact disc recordings selling at £ 9-£ 12 each.
Sales of compact discs overtook sales of Vinyl LPs is Britain for the first time in the second quarter of 1989 because there is less distortion and there is less noise; Dust and dirt don’t affect CDs. They don’t wear out because they use laser light rather than a needle on a record.
LPs are analogue recordings, while CDs are digital recordings. When you make copies of digital recordings, the copy is just as good as the original. In analogue recording the signal is constantly varying; It can have any value between a maximum and a minimum, but in digital the signal is either on or off. The distinct advantage is the player mechanism can be programmed to play tracks in difference sequences are replay certain tracks. Instead of serial access one track after another from the beginning of the record to the end you have random access the tracks in any order you please.
