When CDs first came onto the market in 1982 .......

I heard the first CD player on the market for the USA in '82. This was the Hitachi vertical-loader. Retail price $1K. Not many CDs available then. I was not tempted to sell my TT! I didn't buy my first CD until the Fall of '91. I bought my first player the following Summer in '92 - a cheap Technics. Sounded OK! Not tempted to sell my TTs. I was busy buying brand-new LPs at bargain prices as music retailers were dumping them to add space for more CDs. The reason I held off buying CD players was because I didn't think the first few generations sounded good. By the 90's they were at least listenable!

@ozymandias_ 

You are mistaken.  Increased dynamic range, clarity, blacker backgrounds, lack or surface noise, no dust bunnies in the styli, no warped lps (the vinyl quality of the era was particularly bad).  I couldn’t wait to switch to digital 

CD's when first introduced may have been marketed as perfect sound forever, remember searching for those rare DDD recordings? I did and suspect most others did too. Why did CD's take over the market, because most vinyl record producers were cranking out piss poor quality product, I was on average returning 1 out of 4 LPs for pressing defects, warps, clicks and pops!  No such problems with the new technology. I attribute the sound issues of brightness and sterility to be the fact that the DACs were still immature technology. Some of those early CDs sound pretty good on more modern players we have today. Another feature that early CD players had that I DO miss and aided in the acceptance was the convenience of the "music calendar" and programing the tracks in whatever order you wanted!    

Everyone here makes some valid points, in favour or not, the truth is it was cool back then getting people to a new era. The other truth is that some of the best ones were made between very late 80's to late 90's, many lasting till today, with a very energetic and fresh sound, a virtue that was lost later in favour of bland and rather controlled performances. I got my first two CD players mid 90's and the only thing I regret from that era is not buying half of the titles in vinyl.

Flim & The BBs -- Tricycle.

It was the first recording (for me) that truly delivered the promise of digital sound.  It also served another purpose of scaring the ever-loving %^@* out of me at the same time.

And, oh those Monster CD Sound Rings that arrived a few years later.  (Just don't use them in your slot-loaded CD player).

@akg_ca Well done, sir.