October 1 marked the 32nd anniversary of the first CD player reaching the marketplace. According to techhive.com, the Sony CDP-101 was released in Japan and retailed for 168,000 yen (about $674).

My first experience with a CD was not until around 1989. My girlfriend at the time borrowed a CD player, headphones, and a couple of CDs from a friend, and I got a chance to listen.

One of the CDs was the Yes album 90125. I was never a Yes fan, but I enjoyed hearing some of the songs from this album on the radio. Boy, was I in for a surprise when I listened to that album on CD. I remember the sound being incredible.

Not long after that, I talked to Bob Stroud, host of Rock & Roll Roots on WLUP in Chicago. I asked him if he had any tricks for getting rid of the "pops and clicks" from vinyl records. He told me to get CDs. Saying I'll never get the sound clean enough to compare.

He was right, but every now and then I get nostalgic and break out the vinyl (so does Brian Myles).

The amount of music purchased on CD peaked in 2000 at around 2,455,000,000 units. Today, annual music-download sales surpass physical-media sales.

I have the Yes 90125 album downloaded onto my laptop. Every time I listen to it, it still brings me back to the first time I put on a set of Sony headphones to listen to it on CD.

If you are a child of the vinyl age, do you remember the first time you heard music from a Compact Disc? What was it? Could you tell the difference?

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