"Got a Pop History/Pop Culture question from the 60's, 70's, 80's or 90's?" Just askmrpophistory@mrpophistory.com

CDs

From Joe M – Mr. Pop – Please tell me when the first recordable Compact Disc unit came out?

Mr. Pop History– Introduced back in the summer of 1991 – so many of us couldn’t believe there was a consumer unit to “record” compact discs. For $19,000 – you could purchase Denon’s new CD recorder. Prices were expected to drop to $5000 in two years. Recordable CD discs were priced at $40 each. The product was introduced at a Dow stereo store in San Diego.

These were very frustrating years for those of us who wanted something better than cassette tapes. The other choices were the new digital cassette tapes (lots of confusion and big prices) and we had reel-to-reel tape. Pre-recorded Compact Discs had been out for about seven years by then, and just the thought of being able to record on a CD made us crazy.