Keith Hirsch’s CD Resource

The first CD pressing plant to open in the United States was CBS/Sony’s Digital Audio Disc Corporation, or DADC, in Terre Haute, Indiana.  To commemorate the opening of the DADC plant in September 1984, CBS/Sony pressed two promotional titles in very limited quantities.  The discs were then distributed to select members of the media and [...]

In 1985, Vertigo, a sub-label of Phonogram, issued the world’s first CD single in Europe to promote the landmark Dire Straits album Brothers in Arms and the resulting world concert tour.  The four-track single featured long and short versions of the album’s title track, a portion of “Why Worry” from Brothers in Arms, and “Going Home”, [...]

CBS/Sony opened the first commercial CD pressing plant in Japan in 1982.  In the early days of the CD, many record labels turned to CBS/Sony to press their discs.  As a way to track the many manufacturing projects in the plant, for both outside labels and their own, CBS/Sony developed a system of project identification [...]

I thought it was time to throw some holiday cheer into keithhirsch.com with a Christmas CD…or two!  Described here are two rare Elvis Presley Christmas discs.
In 1984, RCA issued the Elvis Presley Merry Christmas album on CD in the U.S. and Europe.  Although one might expect this album to be a staple in the Elvis [...]

Among my latest acquisitions is a very rare Japanese Target CD pressing of Led Zeppelin “IV”.  Shown below, this disc bears the original European catalog number of 250 008.  The disc was pressed at the CBS/Sony plant, as evidenced by “CSR COMPACT DISC” repeating in the plastic ring.  The matrix code is “DIDZ-10058 31A3″.
Based on [...]

The vast majority of early Japanese pressings of CBS/Sony titles for the U.S. market have ”MADE IN JAPAN” or “MANUFACTURED IN JAPAN” stamped along the perimeter at the end of a copyright statement.  Certain discs, however, have a “MADE IN JAPAN” sticker affixed beneath the CD format logo at 3 o’clock.
It is not clear to me why [...]

The first Japanese CD issue of The Police Synchronicity was released under catalog number 38XB-2.  There are two pressings that differ in several ways.  Importantly, the first pressing mimics the original LP release in that it has just 10 tracks rather than the typical 11.  “Murder by Numbers” does not appear on this disc.  Shown below are pictures of [...]

Here is another disc that I had been searching for for a very long time.  It is the original Japanese CBS/Sony pressing of Jethro Tull Aqualung for the U.S. market.  This pressing is very rare in my experience, as I have only come across three copies.  The disc has “CSR COMPACT DISC” repeating in the [...]