Recording Industry Advertising

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The Introduction of Digital (1980s)

all ads taken from Hi-Fidelty magazine by Lisa Czembor

Audio Disc / Compact Disc

Sony "Sony creates seventh row, center. Forever", April 1983	Hitachi Audio Disc Player, June 1983
Mitsubishi "You Don't Become A Digital Audio Expert Overnight", May 1983 ->	Mitsubishi, facing page
Fisher "The State of the Art has just been elevated", Oct. 1983	Sony "Enter the World of Digital Audio ...", Dec. 1983
Technics "The Science of Sound", Feb. 1984	Kyocera "Why put two filters into one great Compact Disc player?" March 1984
Denon "Design Integrity", April 1984	Yamaha "Yamaha introduces the second-generation gap", April 1984
TEAC "Fanatics reveal the ultimate truth", July 1984	Pioneer "Who would have thought it could trigger a revolution in sound?" Oct. 1984
Sherwood ".. the latest thing in second generation CD audio technology: Affordability", Sept. 1984	Harmon-Kardon "The perfect balance ...", Dec. 1985
Sony "A few words for those who haven't experienced ...", March 1985 ->	Sony, following page
NEC "NEC's digital experience ...", Jan. 1986	Sony "Stevie Wonder", Jan. 1986
Technics "lets you create an audio empire ...", Nov. 1986	Radio Shack "The Ultimate Performers", Nov. 1986
Magnavox "...but can he remember 785 of your favorite songs?". Dec. 1986	Onkyo, "Beyond conventional audio", Dec. 1986
Akai, Jan. 1987	Pioneer, "Not Evolutionary, Revolutionary", Feb. 1987
Carver, "Digital Discrimination", Feb. 1987	Yamaha, "has just redefined the compact disc", Oct. 1987

"Between the FTC and the mass-marlet Japanese audio companies' advertising campaigns of the late 1970s [which claimed that THD was the only important measure of audio component sound quality], consumers were ripe for compact disk advertisements quoting low THD figures. ... Digital tape recorders actually introduce more harmonic distortion than analog tape recorders over most of the range of audio signal levels."

"It is puzzling that people without any engineering knowledge, who would not question the sonic virtues of a $500,000 Stradivarius, will vociferously assert that their $200 CD player, 7-kg Japanese receiver and cheap box speakers will produce a sound that is free of distortion and indistinguishable from live music."

"Edward Rothstein, The New Republic's experienced music critic, wrote an article on high-fidelity audio equipment in which he noted the superiority of analog LPs. This article generated considerable controversy which prompted a followup in which Rothstein stated that he 'could write vituperatively about music for decades without once generating the wattage of protestation and the limited frequency response that greeted this essay about mere equipment'."

from P. Greenspun "Audio Analysis V: Time- and Frequency-Domain Distortions in Digital Signal Processing Systems", Computer Music Journal, 10(4), 1986.