First Personal CD-Player: $69.00 (Cheap!)

In the Autumn of '88, when I was just a sophmore in high-school, I decided it was time to get my first CD-player. Naturally, I wanted to get the best for my money, which at the time meant the lowest-priced model I could find at the nearest mall I could ride my bike to.

After a day of wandering & looking in whatever shops carried personal-entertainment electronics, and whatever models they had... including a bulky unit from Crown that required ten AA-batteries... I settled on the Citizen CBM-777 offered by Montgomery Wards Electric Avenue department. Price: $69.00 (Cheap!) and the lowest I saw it offered for anywhere. But with no money at the moment, it had to wait.

For the next few weeks, I saved half of the money I got daily for lunch, waiting in anticipation until I had enough to buy that low-buck piece of advanced technology. Just a dollar a day saved, but worth it in the long run... until I learned they only had a few left, and I only had half of what's needed.

The following Tuesday evening, I approached my dad with tale of my quarry & situation, hoping he'd have some sort of pity on me. Well, being generous to a fault as he was, and understanding how I made a conscious effort to save money (He was an accountant) he agreed to go with me to get it. He even went so far as to buy my first CD at Rose Records next-door: The Cars: Heartbeat City.

Getting it home and trying immediately, I learned part of as to why it was so cheap: No oversampling, and the battery case was an option you had to send-in for! Still, I was glad to have it, even as other faults--like a scratchy volume control, and the line-out port not being true line-level--reared their heads. I even used it to copy another CD to 8-track for playing on the system at work.

Jump forward ten years, and I'm again considering getting a personal CD-player... To update/upgrade, of course! Looking around, I found another inexpensive model for about the same as the last. But after getting it, I returned it to buy a Panasonic that was WAY-better: 10-sec. sampling & Bass Boost! The price: about the same as the Citizen bought a decade before.

I later bought another Panasonic with 40-sec. oversampling, but preferred the 10-sec. model because of it's line-level output... A TRUE line-level output! The kind that could be used with a tape-adapter in the car with no distortion. The second Panasonic cost about the same as the last, which became my limit of what I'd spend on any future models obtained. And every week since, with the arrival of the Sunday paper, I'd check the flyers of the local electronic chain stores to see what was offered under that "cap".

Mind you, this was in the early-2000's, so physical media was at it's height. I saw blister-packs of MD kits hanging on racks of those stores, all selling for about the same... but my interest was in CD-players, and whatever advancements came with each new model. And what I could get under my limit.

Eventually, MP3s & their players caught-on and the prices for personal CD-players began to drop rapidly. I would've gladly bought any of them, if only I had the money to spare at the time, but sadly I couldn't. Then the market for them quickly dried-up, leaving only the most unlikely of brands (Memorex?) offering any, loaded with features like FM-radio, CD-R/RW & MP3 capability... all for less than $40.00.

The last time I went through a store's electronics section, I spotted a player in a blister-pack... made by some unknown Chinese company (Onn) and loaded with functions. Price: $22.78 (DAMN-cheap!) But what's the point? I can type-in any artist or title on YouTube and stream it through my phone, which has a bass-boost app that I can adjust to my headphones--Yes, headphones! And is it as good as what was offered in the heyday? Probably not... But it's nice to know you can still get one, cheap.

 

Thanks for sharing your story.
Do you still have your first CD player?

Why not to try Spotify and Pandora since their quality is better than YouTube.

 

I have all three mentioned, in fact... I just lent the 40-sec. Panasonic to my dad the other day, so he can review parts of songs his chorus group sings.

As for Spotify or Pandora... Even when I recorded music on Rhapsody to Mini-Disc, I only did it via the computer's audio-out jack, using the "free trial" mode. What can I say? I collected records because used ones were cheap, and began the same with CDs a few years ago for the same reason. I even got a few 8-tracks because of that! So if it costs too much, I'm not having part of it, unless I want it that badly.

 

You cannot beat the Zero price of FLAC downloads thru Napster (now bittorent) sites, thats how music got free... Tidal HiFi subscription and Nak cassette deck is how I record tunes for my boomboxes, to be played outside, do not even bother pulling CDs off the shelves. Tidal does not work too well for my present obsession with "classical" but for Rock/Pop it has everything from my huge CD/LP collection plus infinitely more. Once Tidal signed an agreement with ECM label, I am set even with my fav living jazz masters.

 

I once tried recording Rhapsody to cassette, but the masking done by MP3's AFLIAC became more obvious during playback.

I live close to a resale shop that borders on a cul-de-sac neighborhood, so I have stumbled across some rather rare high-end equipment. Such as: A Sony DTC-1000ES DAT deck, for $25.00. It was a shame it didn't work for me... I guess their electronics guy [who volunteers his time to test donations] couldn't get it to work because of how unusual the format is, so they just slapped a price tag on it and figured "Someone will be interested in it....". I since replaced it with a working unit, and since hearing about the anti-piracy methods built into later models, I'm glad I got another of same model!

 

My Tidal subscription is lossless 44.1/16... Some albums even hi-res through MQA (haven't tried that option yet) so no such problems there

 

Walked down the clearance aisle the other day, and look what I found--cheap!:
[GALLERY=media, 1471]DSCF0478 by nickelindimer posted Jun 29, 2020 at 1:58 PM[/GALLERY]
[GALLERY=media, 1472]DSCF0481 by nickelindimer posted Jun 29, 2020 at 1:58 PM[/GALLERY]
Takes two AA's (classic...) and has a lot of functions, including multi-preset FM-radio & CD/CD-R/CD-RW/MP3 compatability... but no bass boost. Plugged-in my Blue Lola headphones and found the radio has better reception than my WM-FS555, but the sound overall isn't so great. One wonders how CDs will be on it....

 

That sounds like an absolute bargain. This is what Sears were offering in 1988



At the same time UK retailer Argos didn't have a single CD player in their catalogue. you would have had to have gone to an Electrical / HiFi retailer or an upmarket department store to get one back then. In 1989 when I bought my first player the cheapest I could find new was £100.

 

At least those models could hold batteries within them.... but that pic! Is that from the Christmas Wishbook? I so miss breezing through those!

 

Spot on

I love looking through old catalogues and have 30GB of scans here on the hard drive. That one was on a DVD similar to this

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/BIG-COLL...epid=0&hash=item3afd6891ef:g:XpgAAOSwsABaVkNX

It is a good thing Hard drives have got a bit cheaper than this one in the same catalog

 

Oh, the days when we thought 20MB was "more than enough"...!