In 1982, Sony and Philips introduced the compact disc, a digital music playback format that used a laser to read the disc. The compact disc was expected to quickly replace the long play record album (LP) that Columbia had introduced in 1949. The product took off quickly, even at a retail price that was nearly double that of a record album, and sales of record albums plummeted. The CD, as compact discs quickly became known, offered what audio magazines called “perfect sound forever” while offe.