Do you remember the first CD(s) you ever purchased? If you are now college aged, you probably don’t since CDs have been the primary medium of music since the late 1980’s and that’s probably all you’ve heard. At least until iPods and other portable digital media players.

Anyway, I first got a CD when I first got a CD player, which was at the end of college, in 1990. I think it was a graduation present. Anyway, I remember the two first CDs I got because I was already familiar with the music. But I had never heard them with such incredible clarity. Here were my first two CDs (and, yes, you can still get both of them at Amazon):

Wagner: Highlights from “The Ring” with Zubin Mehta conducting the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. I remember especially “The Ride of the Valkyries,” where you could hear the timpani so clearly you thought the Valkyries were going to ride right out of the stereo and out the door!

Behind the Gardens-Behind the Wall-Under the Tree, by Andreas Vollenweider I had listened to a copy of the cassette tape of this album, and had enjoyed the “electroacoustic harp” that he played. Hearing this on CD made everything sound so crisp, it was like he was right there in the room with you! I’ve since gotten almost all of his CDs, but I still remember my mother’s reaction when she saw the CD cover: “There’s a man winking at me!” :-D
Making the switch from cassette tapes to CDs was one of those defining moments in my musical life. For those of you who are too young to remember the impact made on listening to music when switching from tapes to CDs, there may never be another epiphanic moment like that in your lifetime. Switching to digital audio on iPods is only a matter of convenience, not nearly as much a matter of clarity. You’ve already got digital music, you’re just switching its broadcast medium.

If there DOES come a new musical medium that makes such a quality jump over CDs, I can’t wait to hear it!