Think Small: Here Come CDs

By Michael Walsh.

Digital sound opens a new age in recording technology

This is the year to pity poor music lovers. Just when they thought they had assembled the best audio system budgets could buy, along comes a technological development that may render their expensive turntables and library of LPs as out of date as Edison's first talking machine. This month two major manufacturers, Sony and Magnavox, are introducing a limited number of digital record players in audio and department stores across the U.S. The machines, which retail for $800 to $1,000, use a laser beam instead of a conventional tone arm and stylus to play compact discs, or CDs, that are only 4.7 in. in diameter and will sell for about $17. Says Dan Davis, vice president of the National Association of Recording Merchandisers: "There is a consensus that this is perhaps the most exciting of the breakthroughs in the field, including the LP and stereo."

The new system has been enthusiastically welcomed in Japan, where the players and discs went on sale last October; despite the high price tag, more than 35,000 players were sold in the first three months. Originally plans called for the equipment to be introduced in the U.S. this summer and fall, but Magnavox and Sony have each launched a spring offensive to seize an early share of the crucial American market. At first supplies of both players and discs will be limited, as the companies struggle to get the bugs out and meet production goals. But dozens of other manufacturers have been licensed to make players by Philips, the Dutch electronics giant, and Sony, the joint developers of the technology; thus competition and increased sales are expected to improve the product and drive costs down to a more affordable $400 or so in time.

Until digital, record technology had not changed much in principle since the Edison cylinder. On conventional LPs, called analog recordings, images of sound waves picked up by a microphone are traced into vinyl grooves; a kind of aural photograph is "developed" when a stylus retraces the grooves and re-creates the sonic vibrations. Digital recordings are akin to the computer-assisted cameras used in space, which translate images into a series of binary numbers that are later reassembled into pictures back on earth. In digital recording a computer takes 44,000 impressions of sound per sec. and assigns each a numerical value. The numbers are then recorded in pits embedded in the disc, read by a laser beam and changed back into sound. The "digital" LPs currently found in record stores are really hybrids, recorded digitally but pressed and played back as analog discs.

Digital CDs have several important advantages over conventional records. For one thing, there is no surface noise, since the laser reads only the numbers, not any dust or grime on the disc's laminated surface. Because nothing touches the disc, there is no wear. Digital records lack the distortion customarily found on LPs in loud passages and near the end of a side, when the sound is unnaturally compressed. The new players are designed to plug into conventional component systems, and the discs will be compatible with any player on the market.

The real advance, however, may turn out to be artistic. Because of the clarity of digital sound, every flaw, both in performance and production, is ruthlessly exposed. One probable result: pop-record producers will be more careful with such studio gimmicks as overdubbing and excessive reverberation. In the classical sphere, an even higher premium will be put on technical excellence.

Skeptics assert that the excitement over digital sound is still premature. They point to potential consumer resistance, the player's high price and the lack of discs. In the U.S., CBS/Sony currently has only 16 titles, and Polygram, whose labels include Philips, Deutsche Grammophon and London, has but 35 classical and pop releases, although CD catalogues will grow as more companies enter the fray. "Even within the next decade, I cannot imagine a total changeover," says Hi-Fi Pioneer Henry Kloss. "The good stuff available on the market right now means there is no need to abandon it for a new standard that isn't totally tried."

Still, it would not be wise to bet against digital. Once the equipment and discs are widely marketed, they will be pushed by merchandisers eager to rejuvenate an industry that has seen customers siphoned off by such high-tech gadgets as video games and home computers. To listeners with good ears, the difference between digital and analog sound is, in its own way, as striking as the distinction between mono and stereo: the startling realism of high notes; the silent surfaces that allow even the lowest passages to be heard clearly; the explosive strength of the climaxes. "This is definitely a mass product," says a confident Bert Gall, CD system product manager at Philips. "Naturally the freaks will buy first, but the large public will surely follow."

--By Michael Walsh. Reported by Raji Samghabadi/New York and Allan Tansman/Tokyo

With reporting by Raji Samghabadi/New York and Allan Tansman/Tokyo This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.