The story goes that a young, aspiring opera singer wrote to Sony complaining that its tape recorders delivered poor audio quality. Sony hired the man, Norio Ohga, who eventually helped launch the compact disc and became Sony’s president and chairman from 1982 to 1995.
Ohga, age 81, died Saturday of multiple organ failure, the company said.
Ohga demanded the CD be designed at 12 centimeters (4.8 inches) in diameter to hold 75 minutes of music so it could store the full Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.
Ohga said the CD would one day replace the record album, which was denied by skeptics. But it only took 5 years for that to occur in Japan (by 1987).
For the car stereo industry, the CD ushered in years of prosperity, as drivers sought to upgrade from OEM cassette players to aftermarket CD players.
See the full obituary here.
Source: AP via Yahoo! News
