History of CD player

Yamaha released its first CD Player in 1982, just after the birth of the CD. Its groundbreaking features included a slide-out disc loading drive mechanism rather than tray-loading, component-style front controls, a mirror that let you see the recorded side of the spinning disc, and an LED bar graph that showed the approximate position of the pickup. For an era familiar only with the analog record, it was probably a natural assumption that the disc and pickup were meant to be seen during play. The choices for a main device were still limited, but this unit straightforwardly emphasized the "sonic difference" with linear 16-bit twin D/A converters and separate power supplies for the digital and analog elements, and laid claim to technical uniqueness with a custom IC developed in-house at the heart of its control system. More than 30 years, later the attention to every detail and neat styling of the Yamaha aesthetic have not lost their luster.

After initially generating tremendous expectations, the CD went into a slump once the first wave of demand had passed. The main reason was that the hardware and software were still expensive. The first CD Player to sell for under 100,000 yen, a major benchmark on the road to full-scale commercial acceptance, was the CD-X1, introduced in 1983 for 99,800 yen. The CD-X1 featured two original LSIs developed and manufactured in-house, significantly reducing the total number of parts in the player to about one-third the conventional amount and becoming Yamaha’s trump card in offering the lowest price in the industry. One of the LSIs was the YM3511 for servo-control, and the other was the YM2201 for digital signal demodulation and processing. With one-chip digital filtering and up to two times oversampling, the latter in particular achieved better sound quality and reliability while simultaneously reducing the cost. The linear 16-bit DAC device became Yamaha’s first ladder type (single). Apart from the mini-component body size and omission of a 10-key pad it was functionally comparable to a high-end model and contributed heavily to the explosive popularity and market expansion of the CD.

Introduced for the first time, High Bit Digital achieved a total of 16x resolution through a combination of the 18-bit 4x oversampling High Bit Digital Filter and 18-bit Operation D/A Convertor offering 18-bit operation with floating point processing by 16-bit DAC. Taking advantage of this resolution with 0.4dB steps and 120dB pure digital volume dynamic range, it was a highly realistic and simple system with direct connection to the power amplifier. Commercialization of the world’s first CD Player with more than 16-bit precision was the result of Yamaha’s in-house development and manufacturing of all digital processing LSIs including the digital filter, and this model sparked the later high-bit arms race that saw competing multi-bit DAC specifications throughout the audio industry. While high-bit dramatically improved the sound clarity of minute level signals, it was also susceptible to disturbances like digital noise and mechanical vibrations. Great progress was made in this area by the use of radiation and resonance countermeasures including a separate sheet design to make the separate analog/digital power supplies and circuit stages fully independent, a high rigidity chassis with thick aluminum top cover and double bottom, and a floating mount CD mechanism. As a result the new unit weighed 15kg, nearly double that of the previous CD-2000 model.

The CDX-2000 appeared in 1987 as an upgrade of the previously released CDX-2200, the first high-bit player. While the exterior appearance and basic design followed that of the CDX-2200, the operation key panel was colored gold and the front panel featured the titanium color of the 10000 series, and its presence was enhanced by the four-piece construction and large heavy insulator inherited from the CDX-10000. Its major claim to fame was the 8x oversampling of its digital filter, and together with digital/analog component separation by the current isolation method instead of the conventional photo-coupler system it achieved a 118dB S/N ratio, phenomenal for its time. Additionally, as a symbol of the glitch-free accuracy achieved by the D/A converter component, it was equipped with the new Pure DAC Direct Switch that output the DAC signal without passing through a low-pass filter, well-received by audio enthusiasts as a novel approach compared to the sound of the "original" DAC.

The GT-CD1 featured accurate reproduction of micro-level signals and the realization of the high rigidity, non-resonant structure to support it. For ten years after the birth of the CD, Yamaha relentlessly pursued this theme before finally arriving at its ultimate answer, the GT Concept (Gigantic & Tremendous) in the GT-2000 analog player, which realized the idea of using the power of gravity to completely neutralize all vibration. The CD mechanism was made secure by mounting it on a 60mm-thick wooden player base housed in a 3kg circular casing carved from gunmetal casting, penetrating and grounded directly to the electronics unit suspended beneath the player base. The CD mechanism did not feature a clamping system, the 160g weight of the brass stabilizer pressing the disc directly to the spindle, covered further with a 10mm glass lid. Completely eliminating the floating mechanism that had become common in the primitive basic structure of the CD Players up to then, it had a profound impact on the audio world of the time. The DAC converter unit featured Yamaha-developed next generation independent left and right I-PDM system 1-bit DACs. While the transport unit and processor unit were completely separated, the integrated separate structure connected them over the shortest distance possible, and its ingenious external design that beautifully expressed what was inside made it a worthy component to play the lead role in the history of Yamaha CD Players.