Oct. 1, 1982: Portable Music Enters the Spin Zone

I wasn't around for '82, but I do remember some of my first CD players. The stand-alone ones were bulky by today's standards, but I thought they looked so cool. I always listened to a lot of music, so I went through many boom-box CD players and portable ones. Not long ago I found one of my early portable CD players, which was adorned with stickers and silly sayings.

I actually resisted getting an iPod for the longest time, until maybe 2 years ago. Until then I was bringing a CD player with me to the gym, looking like a flashback in time compared to some other people. They skipped too much for running though, so eventually I had to turn my back on CDs

Also, I recently bought a t-shirt/CD combo from one of my favorite artists. On their website, the CD alone only cost about $9.99 - I remember back when they were $19.99 or up!

No offense Sharkles, but the last person I saw buying a portable CD player was a little old grandma at Wally-World about 2 years ago. She stopped me as I happened to pass through the isle (either because I looked intellegent or older myself) and asked my opinion on a couple of models.

I can remember back when an audiophile friend of mine saved his pennies and bought one of the first (if not the first) CD players. And so little music was out on CD at the time.

Not long after, I bought one of the first "portable" CD players. About the same size as the portables today, but it didn't have an onboard battery - you had to drag a big wall-wart with you! And it had a fragile proprietary power connector that was always intermittent. Seems like it didn't even have a car DC adapter. I think a friend rigged one up in his car (there were no car CD players of course) using an inverter.

No offense Sharkles, but the last person I saw buying a portable CD player was a little old grandma at Wally-World about 2 years ago.

LOL, no offense taken! I just wanted to support a dying technology for as long as possible, but I have fully-embraced the iPod now.

This topic reminds me of the movie The Wedding Singer (set in the 80s if you haven't seen it). A guy buys his fiance a CD player when they first came out. "I cost me about 700 bucks, but the sound quality is outstanding," he says. It's at 2:50 in this clip, if you're interested.

I have always hated CD's.

I record live shows (And a bit of studio stuff) for various artists in the area. The traditional thing is to burn the data to a CD (currently) and give it to them to have it mass produced. However, I'm wondering, with the current prices of flash media, If perhaps I could write to a flash card, and somehow lock the data in, like ROM. I have a Micro SD card in my phone that will hold WAY more music than would ever be on a single album. I could easily write data to a USB jump drive in a fraction of the time it would take to burn the same data to a CD. I'm considering switching from CD's... soon I hope. hmmm... Maybe I should price 1000 small outdated jump drives from someplace... watch out ebay, here I come!

Sandisk tried (and is still bravely trying) a similar approach to music distribution with their "slotRadio" concept.

http://www.slotradio.com/

But I agree with you that it's a better way to cart around music than CD. Although the Micro SD media is almost "too small" - you know?

Yeah.. similar I suppose, I just got quotes for standard 64-256 MD USB flash drives... somewhat reasonable, at ~ 4 bucks a drive. Which is about what your into after CD's, Cases, printed art/cover/CD-stamp etc. The particular company will print whatever you want on the side of the drive, pre-load the data you want on each drive, lock the data so it cannot be deleted, and make the drive auto-run as if it were a CD. Sounds reasonable, however all those featured have an added cost.

My purpose is a small scale production for local artists. My use would be somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 to a few hundred per group. The function of the device, would be a "merch" or, for sale during a live show, handout/etc. I'll have to pass it by my favorite act I work with, and see what their response is.