- The Dutch physicist, Klass Compaan, paved the way for the development of the compact disc player in the late 1960s. Philips unveiled the first prototype compact disc in the early 1970s and collaborated with other tech savvy companies to produce an industry standard for the compact disc. Sony's CDP-101 model was the world's first commercially available CD player. The player hit the market in 1982 and came with a $900 price tag. Adjusted for inflation, that would be a little over $2,000 in 2008 dollars.
- The introduction of the CD player offered a credible alternative to vinyl LP records and analog cassette tapes as a medium for delivering recorded music. As the price of CD players continued to drop and the availability of music became more wide spread, consumers rapidly adopted the new format, driving sales of compact discs to a peak of nearly 950 million units in 2000 with a retail value of more than $13 billion.
- CD players have undergone an evolution in style, but their basic features remain substantially unchanged. All CD players feature a drive motor for rotating the compact disc at a consistent speed, a tracking system that moves the laser lens along the appropriate track and a laser beam system that reads the information embedded on the compact disc. Of course, there must also be some sort of output device that gives the operator access to this information. This may come in the form of headphones, a powered speaker system or a computer.
- CD players come in a variety of sizes, depending on the application they are being used for. Component models that are designed for use in a high-end home stereo system may be sleek and elegant; portable players may be little larger than the size of a CD jewel case. Some commercial models come in the form of a full-sized juke box.
- The development and rise in popularity of the MP3 format has presented a serious challenge to the dominance of the CD format as a means of storing and playing back music and other data files. Illegal file sharing via the Internet, the growing propensity of music buyers to purchase individual songs from online music sources such as iTunes, Rhapsody, Napster and others, and to store the songs on digital players such as the iPod, has significantly reduced the demand for physical CDs and CD players.
