Sony CDP-101 World's FIRST CD Player - A Piece of Audio History and Working Perfectly

Free Shipping on *ALL* Electronics (Excluding Speakers, Contiguous 48 US States Only)

1980's retro style hailing right to you from 1982. Part of a very large and carefully organized vintage collection that came to us when the original owner decided it was finally time to downsize a little.

Featuring classic Sony design touches from their golden age of ES/Elevated Standard products. Some of the most innovative and unique at the time.

The "It's a Sony" sticker on the front panel in orange that almost seems to be moving while sitting still.

Green that almost glows underneath the power button. Carefully laid-out buttons and knobs. Super-large Play, Pause, and Track buttons - the most frequently used.

The genius in Sony marketing that was able to get "Linear Skate Disc Loading" not only translated somehow from the Japanese desired equivalent, but also prominently featured front and center on the disc tray panel.

And of course, no 1980's cutting-edge digital HiFi would be complete without DIGITAL written up front and center in a techno-style block font!

WORKING PERFECTLY and includes its ORIGINAL WORKING REMOTE!

"The model name CDP-101 was chosen by Nobuyuki Idei, who headed Sony's Audio Division. "101" represents the number 5 in binary notation and was chosen because Idei considered the model to be of "medium class"."

Check out the recent video from our YouTube for the full details:

The stock photo in this listing shows the Sony CDP-101 on display at the Museo della Scienza e della Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci, Milan.

Sony CDP-101 Owner's Manual

The following is courtesy of Wikipedia:

The Sony CDP-101 is the world's first commercially released compact disc player.The system was launched in Japan on October 1, 1982 at a list price of 168,000 yen (approx. US$730, which is about $2,000 in today's dollars).

The Japan-only launch was partially because Philips, Sony's partner in the development of the CD format, was unable to meet the original agreed launch date. Rather than agree to a full postponement, Sony agreed to delay the launch of the format outside Japan by six months. The Philips CD100 launched in November 1982, although early Philips players contained some Sony components.

In line with the agreement, the system was launched worldwide in March 1983.

Because of the high cost of digital-to-analogue converters ("DAC's") at the time, the CDP-101 has only one DAC for both the left and right audio channels. There is no sample-and-hold circuitry to delay the first channel until the other is ready, so the left and right channels are out of sync by approximately 11 µs.

And unlike the Philips CD100 which uses oversampling to enable the use of a 14-bit DAC, the CDP-101 features a 16-bit DAC that was designed and manufactured in-house by Sony. The decision to use 16-bit CD encoding was made at Sony's insistence, because Philips had already developed a 14-bit DAC, and Sony was worried that would allow Philips to get their product to market first if 14-bit encoding had been chosen.

Demonstration CD players from Sony had the disc placed vertically in the machine allowing the CD face to be visible through a transparent front whilst playing. The CDP-101 instead opted for a horizontal tray-loading system. The case and front panel of the system were manufactured from plastics.

The front of the unit featured a vacuum fluorescent display panel to provide information such as track number and playing time, an infrared receiver for the included remote control, and buttons to control playback, open and close the tray and toggle the display between showing elapsed and remaining playing time. The only dial was for adjusting the volume level of a 1/4" headphone jack.

At the back of the unit there are two on/off switches, one labeled Auto Pause and the other Anti Shock. There are two RCA jacks to carry left and right channels of audio; a 26-pin accessory connector is included, presumably for future developments that did not materialize (one was rumored to be CD+G / CD Plus Graphics). There is also a heatsink on the back.

The remote control unit, RM-101, has most of the same buttons as the main system. It omits the open/close button and display toggle, but has numbered buttons unlike the main unit, that allow a particular track number to be selected.

Please click here for detailed specifics regarding our specialized packing process that separates us from the rest.