What was the first CD you bought?

I bought my first CD player in 1983; a Yamaha CDX1

The same day I purchsed my first four CD's;

1. Vienna by Ultravox

2. Hello, I must Be Going by Phil Collins

3. 90125 by Yes

4. Crises by Mike Oldfield.

I still own all of them and enjoy an occasional spin.

I bought a DBX DL5 CD player (really a rather good player). The first CD's I bought to play in it were probably :

The first disc is wonderful (I love Christian Ferras). I later learned to listen to Karajan's 1963  (actually 62) Beethoven symphonies set rather than this 80's digital set.

A very respectable first CD, Massimo.  I'm a little embarrassed to say that I think my very first CD purchase was T'Pau's Bridge of Spies. Very Eighties!  At the time I had a liking for the song China in your Hand and having bought a Phillips CD player from Lasky's was eager to get it home and try it so plumped for the T'Pau album.  I still have it, the CD, but can't remember the last time I gave it spin.

My first CD was Sonny Rollins's Falling in Love With Jazz. I bought it in 1990 in Croydon, on my way to get my first CD player - an Arcam transport with Black Box DAC - which I got from Billy Vee in Lewisham and took home to Caterham on the train, as I couldn't drive.

Bridge of Spies isn't actually that bad - you might want to give it another go. I bought the vinyl in 1987 and then succumbed to nostalgia (and very cheap prices) a few years ago and got the CD.

But, in answer to the OP, my first CD purchase was Jarre's Waiting for Cousteau in 1990. Since I didn't own a CD player at the time, I got a friend to record it onto cassette whilst I saved up for my first player in early 91 - a Technics SLPS50:

I remember getting quite excited to find that Jarre had included several index points on the disc. You see the small 1 on the display between the track number and the time elapsed? A very few albums would include these extra index points to subdivide tracks. Not a great deal of point to it, but since they were almost never listed in liner notes they were a bit like Easter Eggs. Depeche Mode used them on Violator, for example, as did Front 242 extensively on Front by Front.

Mark

My first CD player was part of a late 1980s Pye Midi system (but I'm sure that's forgivable? Please?) ... the first CD ...

(The system was possible this... and people say kids these days don't listen to music in any quality)

I bought my first CD player in 1985, a Phillips CD104B if I recall correctly from a retailer in Bristol which also sold CDs. I guess I must have been swayed by the marketing hype. I purchased three CDs at the same time. These were:

1. Stravinsky Firebird - Ernest Ansermet

2. Tchaikovsky symphony no. 6 - Karajan (digital recording)

3. Led Zeppelin - Untitled (Runes) album

I still play 1 & 2, which have been ripped to the NS01. I gave the (very hissy) LZ album away years ago after I'd purchased the four disc and two disc boxed sets which covered all the released material. TBH the sound quality of those wasn't that much better. 

Eloise posted:

My first CD player was part of a late 1980s Pye Midi system (but I'm sure that's forgivable? Please?) ... the first CD ...

(The system was possible this... and people say kids these days don't listen to music in any quality)

No worrying about the optimal stacking order with that set-up though, Eloise. 

Hungryhalibut posted:

My first CD was Sonny Rollins's Falling in Love With Jazz. I bought it in 1990 in Croydon, on my way to get my first CD player - an Arcam transport with Black Box DAC - which I got from Billy Vee in Lewisham and took home to Caterham on the train, as I couldn't drive.

That's a pretty serious CD player for your first one, Nigel. Impressed!

My first CD player was purchased as a present by my visiting brother (from Europe) thinking that I was way behind times listening to music through a silly LP-12.. The thing sounded painfully bright but its dead silent background as well as the idea that you could listen to music for a full hour without having to get up to flip the disc was mesmerizing.

First CD purchased which still sounds very good today was the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields playing Mozart's horn concertos:

We got a CD player installed at the school radio station (Hitachi DA-800) and about 6 CDs, which IIRC included The Police - Ghost in the Machine and Synchronicity, The Who - It's Hard, and a few others that I've since forgotten about. I remember that the local Pitchfork records had a small selection of the original long boxes all selling for $18.99, and that's where I bought my first CD, which was Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd.  First CD bought in the UK was Transformer by Lou Reed.  I had to wait a year or two before I had my own player to play them on - first being a Denon DCD-1000.

I bought my first cd's in about 1990 to play on a Sanyo all in one hifi with a separate Telefunken cd player. They were Sgt Peppers Lonely Heart's Club Band and Quartet by Ultravox. I don't have the hifi anymore but I still have the cd's. 

MDS posted:

Eloise posted:

My first CD player was part of a late 1980s Pye Midi system (but I'm sure that's forgivable? Please?) ... the first CD ...

(The system was possible this... and people say kids these days don't listen to music in any quality)

No worrying about the optimal stacking order with that set-up though, Eloise. 

Oh not sure... has concerns if the main unit should be stacked on top of the CD or not.  I think my mum would have drawn the line at having a paving slabs to stand it on though!

Am I the only person who bought their first CD before they actually had a CD player?

It was 10,000 Maniacs 'In My Tribe' and I was desperately saving for a player after my mate had bought one so I bought the CD first as it was all I could afford then and it made sure I kept saving.

I stared at it and looked at the reflections for months before I could finally spin it up!

Bruce

Jennifer Warnes - Famous Blue Raincoat.  

I was late into CD, preferring vinyl so my first CD player was an Arcam Alpha 5, I bought it from Salisbury HiFi and this CD amongst others was used for the demo as I didn't have any to bring.  I liked the CD so bought it to play on my new purchase.

I never really warmed to the player, my Roksan Xerxes (which i still have) easily saw it off, but I did like the convenience. The Arcam was replaced by a Morgan Audio Systems Deva CD player a few years later, that was a completely different animal and I then started to accumulate more CD's as the format became listenable to me.

trickydickie posted:

The Arcam was replaced by a Morgan Audio Systems Deva CD player a few years later, that was a completely different animal and I then started to accumulate more CD's as the format became listenable to me.

Gosh, Richard, I remember the Morgan Audio Deva kit.  It seemed to be gone almost as quickly as it appeared.  I looked interesting and rather well made too.

Good to see 10,000 Maniacs get a mention. They were going off the boil by In My Tribe though. Getting a bit commercial but still good.

My first compact disk was the Velvet Underground VU album (a collection of outtakes) and my first player was also a Yamaha.

My mate Alan and I succumbed to cds and we went up to Richer Sounds in Holborn, London to see what they had. We both bought a mid range Philips one so we could see what all the fuss was about. Not huge dosh but not the cheapest. We then pootled off to MDC to buy some cds. 

I bought this

Well, the image in the middle of this reissue cover! It was, to be fair, a revelation! And I have bought many classical cds over the years and enjoyed that fact that you get much more on them before you have to get up and turn them over.

The Philips player has long gone but the cd remains one of my favourites

I returned from a year the US in 1987 having been converted to the advantages of CDs by listening to a friends system and bought a Technics CD player (it's still in the loft I think) in JG Windows store in Newcastle.  I think it fed a Pye receiver and Celestion Ditton speakers.

There was a special offer of three free CDs (not to be sniffed at in those days !).  These two were chosen but I can't remember what was the third - that's going to bug me now til I remember .....

Richard Dane posted:

trickydickie posted:

The Arcam was replaced by a Morgan Audio Systems Deva CD player a few years later, that was a completely different animal and I then started to accumulate more CD's as the format became listenable to me.

Gosh, Richard, I remember the Morgan Audio Deva kit.  It seemed to be gone almost as quickly as it appeared.  I looked interesting and rather well made too.

Richard

I had the CD player, integrated amplifier and a pre-production DAC.  Some pictures of the amp and CD player below  before I sold it..

It was excellent equipment, mainly exported to Germany and the far east, it had some good reviews and was well built.  I changed to the amplifier from Ion Nexus monoblocks with an Ion pre-amp and I felt it was better.  There were similarities in signature, as the designers were involved with Ion at the end I believe.

My first two CD's were purchased from HMV, Oxford Street in fall 1992, where the freshly released R.E.M. - Automatic for the People, and the 'retro' Pink Floyd - The Wall. 

My first CD was bought in around 1993, Indigo Girls - Rites of Passage. Like one or two others, I bought it before I had a CD player, although I had plans to buy a CD player shortly thereafter. The CD player I bought was a Roksan DP1 (the top-loading player that resembled a washing machine!) with an Audiolab 8000 DAC. I preferred this combination to Naim's CD player at the time (I can't remember which model this was). I seem to recall that Roksan and Naim had just released their first CD players, but I could be wrong. I replaced the Roksan/Audiolab with a Naim CDX2 in 2008, but I still have the Roksan / Audiolab stored away.

I still have the CD, but haven't played it for some time.

Sorry guys - just realized under the wrong post....

Moderated Post:  That's OK Bert, I have edited.

I bought my first CD in 1985, six years before I acquired a CD player!

The CD was The Durutti Column's Domo Arigato, a live album recorded in Japan and released on Factory (FACD 144). It became something of a talking point, because when it was released in August '85, it was the first non-classical album to be released solely on CD; there was no vinyl or tape version.

I managed to make a tape of it (my then brother in law was a flash git who had to have the latest tech - he had a garish Trio  stacking system so I recorded the CD onto a TDK SA90), although the album is, it has to be said, rather dull and arid, with a very harsh "early digital" sound).

I didn't get a CD player until 1991 - a Nakamichi CD 4:

Oh I missed saying... bought my first CD (the aforementioned Queen - The Miracle) from the Left Legged Pineapple.