Who's got the oldest operating CD player?

I have a Hitachi DA-4000 three beam laser, single cd player, it will even "play" Windows 98 cd!! You can hear the information from the cd while it's spinning, cool! I paid $ 350 plus tax Canadian in 1985! It still works great, but went almost totally dead, just needed a thorough soldering, never failed since! I'll never sell it! Dani.

I had a Fisher CD player from I think 1985, it still worked fine but I gave it away finally.

I had an old portable CD player too, one of if not the first one to come out. It had a separate case it fit in with the battery holder, I think it was made by Technics. Unfortunately it never worked while I owned it.

I have an operating Sony CDP302 including original remote and manual.

I have a Revox B225 (1983) and an original very first Sony Discman (also 1983), both in excellent operating condition and used daily. I even have the remote for the B225.

Peter Wieck Wyncote, PA

I don't know the model or year, but it was early, I bought a Hitachi unit for about $200. I also bought the service manual. I gave the unit to my sister who should still be using it. I used it with a DJ setup at a couple times. I had to hand hold it in one instance so it would not skip on a heavy foot stomping song.

greg

Sony and Philips both came out with players at about the same time (late 1982). I have a Sony CDP-101 which was Sony's first CD player. It's actually my only CD player right now. It doesn't have any trouble playing CD-Rs, but for some reason it refuses to play a small number of my pressed CDs. CD-R copies of those discs work fine though. Andy Cuffe

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I have a 1984 Philips that still operates as did in 1984.

Sharp (Germany), Kyocera, Carver all had vertical units (they were the same inside). in the early 80's.

So basic they didn't even have a counter, just a red LED pointer which gave a relative indication of playing position.

Mark Z.

My oldest player is a very late 80s/early 90s external NEC SCSI CD-ROM drive,that has a base the drive its in, so the player can be taken portable, although you need exteral power. There is a place in the base for a supposed battery pack. It has a decent set of CD player transport controls and track incicator, for a CD-ROM drive.

I've got a working Meridian MCD; the model dates from 1984, but I'm not sure what the date on the unit is. Don't use it much, though; mainly I just go with the iPod.

My oldest working unit is a Fisher AD-850. An unusual vertical-loader w/ a November '83 date on the back. It's about maybe 3/4 the width of an average audiostack component. Reason being that the player has a companion ADP-110 CD holder attached to the right side. Pull-out drawer that holds maybe 6 CDs in full-size jewel cases. Except I have it loaded w/ CD-R backups in paper sleeves (and it holds quite a few of those!).

The loading system is very interesting. There's a motorized door that looks like an oversized cassette one. It opens forward to about 30 degrees revealing a slot at the top. You slip a CD in and push it down a bit. Then the door begins to close and gradually moves the CD into play position as it does. There's also a window on the half opposite to the laser position so you can see the disc spinning. Upon ejecting, it opens and pushes the CD back up, gradually, so that it can be removed when fully opened (kind of like a slot-load CD-ROM).

On Aug 8, 4:28 pm, Andy Cuffe wrote: > On Tue, 7 Aug 2007 21:13:22 -0500, "Matt J. McCullar" >

Got a CDP-101 April 1 1983 for only $750 which was $150 below list. Saw them a month later in Dallas selling for $1100. The CDP-101 gave up the ghost and looked to be having fractures in tracks on the PCBs. Didn't seem worth the bother to fix. That early DAC was nothing to get excited about but is the same DAC in my PCM-701. Takes audio and makes monochrome video to record on a Beta or VHS to record digital audio BC (Before Computers) with the same sample and bit depth as CDs. Dang, it's almost 25 years old. I remember seeing a vertical disc Hitachi CD unit about that time.

There were 11 titles on 4-1-83, all on CBS / Sony. When somebody asks why I have a Barbra Streisand / Andy Gibb disc, well, it was one of the first 11 along with Also Sprach Zarathustra, Beethoven's 5th and some others I forget. Never liked Springsteen which was one of the first 11 but at the time, the discs were $18.50 and I was making $11.50. Should have bought it anyway. The name of the format was not finalized back then and were sometimes referred to as DAD, Digital Audio Disc.

I DO have a 20 year old CDP-302 fully functional which has the most outstanding sled servo I've ever seen. It uses a linear motor - no gears - and is FAST to search anywhere on a 60 minute disc in 1 second. Works great after you clean out that garbage Sony oil and replace it with synthetic Nye oil 2. I also remove Sony lube from the

BTW, was there EVER a CD player manufactured in the US?

GG

Hello,

There have been several US made CD players, such as McIntosh, California Audio Labs (CAL) and Conrad Johnson. However, every one I've seen has had Asian or European mechanisms in them, if not everything else (all of the boards)as well. So, I've not yet seen a US made mechanism. Even the Wadia that I saw open had a 'professional grade' TEAC mechanism as I recall.

Regards, Tim Schwartz

My JVC "R-X400 Computer Controlled Sterero Receiver" has a 'DAD' (and no 'CD) source switch ;)

Regards,

Michael

I never noticed that! (Mine's on the floor, hooked to the computer.)

I have one of those, but it's not working. It has a problem reading the TOC. It plays the TOC area all the way through as if it were an audio track (it even displays the time and calls it track 0), but it never actually loads the TOC. I have the service manual, but the player is stored away at the moment. Andy Cuffe

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The main problem I've seen with the CDP-101 (the 2 I've worked on) has been the STK ICs used to drive the lens (focus and tracking), and the sled and drawer motors. On both players, the lens would start chattering soon after it was turned on. One sometimes ejected the disc while it was playing. The ICs are impossible to find, but I was able to substitute an LA6510 power op-amp.

I have a slightly newer Sony with the same linear motor system. Technics, and even Fisher made some players like that too. Andy Cuffe

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