To CD or not CD, that is the question

Did you know it’s 40 years since the first commercial compact disc was produced?

Work on a digital disc had begun in the Sixties but it wasn’t until August 1982 that the first CD - Richard Strauss’s Eine Alpensinfonie (“An Alpine Symphony”) by the Berlin Philharmonic - was pressed in Germany.

Oblivious to the new technology being developed by Sony and Phillips I bought my first vinyl record - a 7-inch single - in 1972.

Needless to say I didn’t have a record player. Nor did my parents so I played it on my sister’s ‘portable turntable’ which, if memory serves, looked like a small red attaché case.

That arrangement lasted about a week before I realised there was no future in buying records unless I had a record player of my own.

A few months later, however, as a Christmas present, I was given a Phillips portable cassette player and thereafter, for more than 15 years, I bought music cassettes until I had a sizeable collection.

In 1976 I upgraded to a slate grey Sony cassette deck with external speakers and that saw me through university and beyond until I replaced it with a Sony music centre that had a tuner (radio), twin cassette decks, an amplifier and a turntable.

Now I could play vinyl as well as cassettes but because my car only had a cassette player I stuck with my tapes and purchased only a handful of records (which are now in the garage).

Which brings me back to CDs.

It was 1990, I think, before I bought a CD player and 2005 before I had a car with a CD player.

The CD player for use at home was part of a Technics (Panasonic) hi fi system with turntable, CD, twin cassette decks, tuner and amp.

From then on I mostly bought CDs although I still purchased the occasional cassette for the car. Records? Not so much.

CDs are unloved now but I liked them because the sound was a significant improvement on my cassettes and there was no longer the aggravation of getting the tape caught in the machine.

Nor did CDs crackle and hiss like some vinyl, older records especially. True, they could jump if the disc got damaged but there was far less chance of that than scratching a record which was very easily done.

Unfortunately I can no longer play CDs in my car because the CD player has been made obsolete by Spotify (subscription required, which I don’t have) and Bluetooth which allows me to listen to the music on my phone, but as I’ve yet to properly master the art of downloading music to any device I generally listen to the radio instead.

At home the Technics hi-fi system is now in the garage with the exception of the turntable, amp and speakers which my daughter is using to play her own collection of vinyl records.

The CD player however is redundant because to the best of my knowledge she has not bought a single CD. Ever.

Meanwhile the portable radio/CD player we had in the kitchen has been made obsolete by a smart speaker and Amazon Music, although it’s mostly used to listen to the radio.

The only time I play CDs these days is via my iMac using an external disk drive and desktop speakers and even that is quite rare because I’ve never been able to work and listen to music at the same time.

Despite that I still buy the occasional CD including some eye-wateringly expensive ‘deluxe’ editions. The question is, why?

I’m not sure I know the answer. Most are ‘remastered’ or ‘remixed’ versions of CDs I already possess. Like many people I convince myself they will sound better than the original CD but since my disk drive and desktop speakers are unlikely to be better than my old hi fi system the chances of me noticing any difference are very slim indeed.

The remastered CDs usually have additional tracks, including demos or live recordings, that weren’t considered good enough for release 20, 30 or 40 years ago and after hearing them once I’ll probably never listen to them again.

So what’s the attraction? I really don’t know.

Perhaps it’s nostalgia. Cherry Red for example has done a great job repackaging remastered versions of every album by Be-Bop Deluxe, the first band I ever saw live (in 1976).

Five studio and one live album have been given the ‘deluxe’ treatment and even though I’m not an uber fan I had to buy every one, although I did resist the 15CD/1DVD limited edition box set of ‘Live! In The Air Age’ in favour of the 3CD remastered and expanded edition.

And now the company has excelled itself with a 4CD/2DVD box set by Bill Nelson’s Red Noise despite the fact that the band only released one album (‘Sound-on-Sound’ in 1979) after Nelson disbanded Be-Bop Deluxe the previous year.

Released last week ‘Art/Empire/Industry - The Complete Red Noise’ includes a remastered version of ‘Sound-on-Sound’ plus new surround sound and stereo mixes, additional or previously unreleased tracks, a previously unreleased live concert, a BBC radio session, home demos, and a session from The Old Grey Whistle Test.

All this plus a ‘lavishly illustrated’ booklet. What’s not to like?!

Perhaps I’m being manipulated but if so I have no complaints. No-one forced me to buy them. I bought them in full knowledge of the fact that they will probably gather dust on my bookshelf but I’m happy they’re there and I can play them if I want to.

Btw, in case anyone is doubting my sanity I should add that, since I have neither surround sound nor a CD player in my home or car, I also skipped The Complete Red Noise in favour of the limited (and less pricey) 2CD edition.

I’m not completely stupid!