October 1, 1982: Sony Releases First CD Player
Today in 1982, Sony released their CDP-101, the world's first commercially released compact disc player. The CDP-101 was available exclusively in Japan until its worldwide release in March 1983, and sold for 168,000 yen (about $730). Due to cost-cutting in regard to DACs (digital-to-analogue converter), all CDs played in the CDP-101 had their left and right audio channels off by 11 microseconds; however this is entirely undetectable to the human ear.