It may seem quaint from our perspective in 2024, when Spotify alone processes more than 1 billion song streams per day, but in 1983 less than 1 million compact discs were sold in the United States. That number quintupled in 1984—and by 1985, annual CD sales doubled again, to more than 10 million. “Digital” was a word on everyone’s lips; it was the future.
In 1986, I was fresh out of the service, a student of electrical engineering, and had landed my first AV job selling televisions and stereo equipment for a regional department store chain. “Digital ready” was a phrase plastered on nearly everything imaginable in those days. There were “digital ready” headphones, speakers, and amplifiers—all of which were completely analog in design. I remember thinking about how technically incorrect, and even misleading, that marketing speak was. It was my introduction to AV buzzwords.
