Yamaha released its first CD Player, the CD-1 in 1982, just after the birth of the CD. Designed with Yamaha's own aesthetics of sound and appearance. Its groundbreaking features included a slide-out disc loading drive mechanism rather than tray-loading, component-style front controls, a mirror that let you see the recorded side of the spinning disc, and an LED bar graph that showed the approximate position of the pickup. For an era familiar only with the analog record, it was probably a natural assumption that the disc and pickup were meant to be seen during play. The choices for a main device were still limited, but this unit straightforwardly emphasized the "sonic difference" with linear 16-bit twin D/A converters and separate power supplies for the digital and analog elements, and laid claim to technical uniqueness with a custom IC developed in-house at the heart of its control system.
Is it true that all digital sounds are the same? Even if you're not a music enthusiast, you know how important a high level balance between the music source and the playback device is to the sound. In other words, it's a very obvious conclusion that the best music source is the best playback device. If that's the case, while fully acknowledging the potential of CDs as music sources (or rather, because of that!), I would like to overturn the trivial rumor about CD players that all digital sounds are the same! The Yamaha CD-1. A black beauty that fully traces the extraordinary amount of music information of CDs. It conquers the sound of CDs with the very Yamaha style. The first condition for being as CD-like Hi-Fi as possible: Just 0.8 microns, each countless pit is a fountain of new music! Since it is the lifeblood of the CD sound, ultra-precise tracing capabilities were first necessary. The CD-1 employs a double error correction circuit that strictly returns the signal to its original state even if a large number of errors occur in the detection signal. Combined with the adoption of a servo system with excellent tracking performance, this is a thorough pickup section for sound. In order to accurately demodulate digital to analog stereo signals, the CD-1 uses a 16-bit linear conversion method for the D/A converter and a unique twin configuration. This means that the distribution of L and R is digitally processed, and there is no need to switch analog signals, so music unique to CDs is reproduced to the fullest.
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