About me and DCC

Hi everybody,

Erwin from the Netherlands here.

In 1991, I was 13 going on 14 and a fan of Philips. My dad worked there, and the company was part of our lives. I owned a cheap hifi set and dreamed of owning an 800-series one day. I once had all the catalogs from 1990 up until about 1997 and knew them by heart from front-to-back.

When the 900-series and DCC came along, I first saw them on a Philips Family Day (where family members of employees could tour the facility). They were on display with all the new products for the following year in the employee shop on the premise, but couldn’t be listened to (quite possibly those were dummy units).

From the start I was fascinated with the format. The prospect of taking CDs from the library and making perfect sounding copies at home sounded like a license to print money to little 14 year old me LOL. Btw, I still think this is why DCC was most successful here in the Netherlands. We’re cheap buggers after all.

Of course I couldn’t afford the 900-series at age 14, let alone the DCC900, but the interest remained. I read everything there was to read about DCC. In 1992 Philips launched their road show: a touring pavilion across the Netherlands showcasing (mainly) CDi, DCC and widescreen TVs. I must have visited it 20 times in the three days it was in my city.

In 1994 I was able to buy a CD950 from hard earned money and the coincidence that the employee shop needed to get rid of their demo unit. DCC came in a year later in 1995 when I managed to buy a new-in-box DCC900 for a steep discount in the employee store. At age 16 my friends all had mopeds and scooters, but I owned a 900-series top-of-the-line CD and DCC player. And a bike, as you can only spend money once.

Over the years I accumulated stacks of tapes and even a second deck (DCC951) just-in-case. That one was an absolute steal on clearance at 100 Dutch guilders (about $50 in 1998 money) including a number of prerecorded tapes.

I still have both decks and most of the prerecorded tapes (and of course all my own recordings).

I don’t own any rare things. I do own a Philips branded demo tape that comes in a large box along with an analogue tape that has the same music on it, so you could compare DCC to traditional tapes. No idea if this is rare, but it does mention that it’s not for resale.

Cheers,
Erwin

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Great story. Welcome to the forum.

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Great story Erwin! Welcome to the forums.

You may like the picture at the following link, especially the little temporary structure next to the station :slight_smile:


(please be patient, the file is 35 MB)

===Jac

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One of these? “Philips Digital Cassette Challenge”

I have one of those, too! Mine doesn’t say anything about not being for resale, though, at least not on the outside. (Mine’s still sealed in its shrinkwrap, though, so I don’t know if it says it on the inside or not.) I’m guessing they must be somewhat uncommon, at least, since I don’t think I’ve seen one come up for sale on eBay anytime recently…

(Funny thing is, I’m not even sure how I ended up with one of these in my collection… It’s obviously a European-market item, what with the Dutch text on the front and the UK/Euro spelling of “Analogue” (we spell it “Analog” here in the USA :slight_smile: ) )

From the translation of the text on the front:
“Do the DCC test with your customers”
“And let them hear the difference in sound quality”
I’m guessing this wasn’t a retail item, but part of a promotional demo kit that would’ve been sent out to stereo shops and music stores to promote the technology by letting the salesman give a prospective customer a side-by-side comparison of the same music, played through the same tape deck, amplifier, and speakers, but from analog vs. DCC tape.

Oh yes, that’s the one :wink:

Yup, that’s the one (or at least one that’s very similar; I don’t have mine handy to compare it to your pic).

I got it with my DCC900 as a gift because the person running the employee store knew my dad. I don’t think they gave one away with every DCC900.

My DCC900 did come with a sampler tape that holds some of the same tracks that this one does.

Cheers,
Erwin

The Museum’s list of DCC releases suggests there were several variations of it, where the cover text is in different languages (German, English, and French), as well as what looks like a couple of different cover variations for the French version. Which makes it even more odd that I have the Dutch-language version, since I’m in the USA and we don’t exactly have a lot of native Dutch speakers here…

And yeah, I seriously doubt they gave one of these away with every DCC900 – like I said, this has the look of a demonstration kit that would normally have been sent out to TV-and-Stereo shops, so that the sales staff could give prospective customers a side-by-side comparison.

The sampler tape, on the other hand… this one?


I believe my DCC900 came with one of these packed into the box, as well.

Yes, that’s the sampler tape that came with my DCC900.

What a fantastic story !! You sound just like me although I wasn’t lucky enough to have family in my favourite electronics company . I to was also facinated by dcc . My first CD player was a cd 920 then a cd 950 which I still have still Going strong As for dcc it self I first had a dcc 900 then a 951 .

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