After a slow beginning — CD players had launched at close to $1,000 in 1982 and 1983, keeping the format a relatively niche, early-adopter purchase — 1985 is generally regarded as the year CD sales started climbing rapidly. Falling player prices and a growing catalog of prerecorded discs made the format a realistic option for a much wider range of buyers, setting up the format's eventual takeover of the market later in the decade.
Portable cassette stereos, meanwhile, were arguably at their cultural peak in the mid-1980s, with boomboxes from JVC, Sharp, Sanyo, and others growing larger, louder, and more feature-laden as manufacturers competed for street-level visibility as much as home hi-fi credibility. It's a year that captures the hi-fi market at a genuine crossroads between the analog present and the digital future.