Sony DADC's first plant, located in Terre Haute, Indiana, opened on May 2, 1983, and produced its first CD, Bruce Springsteen's Born in the U.S.A., in September 1984. It was the first CD manufacturer in the United States and serves as the company's principal CD manufacturing facility and its research and development center.
The plant was initially a subsidiary of CBS/Sony Group, but Sony acquired CBS's stake in October 1985.
When Sony bought CBS Records in 1988, it acquired the company's manufacturing facilities, some of which later became part of Sony DADC. These included plants in Pitman, NJ (closed in 2011), Terre Haute, IN; Toronto, Ontario, Canada (closed in 2011); Mexico City (closed 2015); Salzburg, Austria; Mumbai, India; and Manaus, Brazil. These plants were originally manufacturers of vinyl gramophone records, later transitioning to CD manufacturing: Pitman in 1988, Manaus in 1992, and Toronto and Mexico City in 1994.
LaserDiscs, primarily 12-inch prints of feature films and concerts, were manufactured by Sony DADC in the 1980s and 1990s. Some of the laserdiscs made at DADC exhibit laser rot more than those from other manufacturers.
Sony DADC currently manufactures the majority of CDs sold in the United States.[citation needed] In November 2008, the company acquired the American disc-manufacturing capabilities of Glenayre Technologies, which manufactured discs for Universal Music Group. In the summer of 2009, the company assumed the physical distribution of EMI's North American operations. This left WEA as the only major label whose discs were not manufactured by the company,[citation needed] as its discs were manufactured by the operations of the former WEA Manufacturing that were sold to Cinram.
On August 8, 2011, a Sony DADC distribution center in Enfield was destroyed during the 2011 England riots. The warehouse was used by independent music distributor PIAS Entertainment Group to distribute CDs, LPs, and DVDs for over 100 European independent labels. The total stock loss in the fire was reported to be between 3.5 million and 25 million units.
On January 17, 2018, the DADC plant in Terre Haute, IN, announced the layoff of 375 employees, shifting US audio disc manufacturing to Sonopress. It was later determined that most audio discs would be manufactured by CDA Inc. Currently, the majority of audio discs manufactured for Universal Music Group US and Sony Music Entertainment US are produced by CDA Inc, while packaging and assembly into jewel cases are completed in the US. Technicolor (later Vantiva, now Conectiv) also sometimes assists in disc manufacturing for Universal Music Group US.
In April 2019, Sony DADC Japan Inc. was merged with Sony Music Communications, Inc. to become Sony Music Solutions, Inc., placing the Japanese DADC plants under Sony Music's control.
On January 13, 2022, the DADC plant in Terre Haute, IN, announced the layoff of 100 employees, moving US gaming and disc manufacturing capacity from Terre Haute to Salzburg, Austria. Assembly and distribution will remain in Terre Haute, IN. The Terre Haute plant eventually focused its manufacturing capacity towards medical devices, automotive parts, and other electronic devices.
On July 1, 2026, Sony Interactive Entertainment announced the planned discontinuation of physical media for its PlayStation consoles, to take place in January 2028 for any games released from that point onward. As a result, the DADC plants in Austria have begun repurposing their manufacturing capacity to focus on optical microlenses. At the time, DADC Austria's manufacturing of PlayStation games for North America and Europe accounted for half of the plant's daily manufacturing capacity of 600,000 discs, but it is now expected to be reduced to 10% of that capacity, in order to support reprinting of games released prior to the cutoff date.
Printed on the discs or packaging of Sony DADC-manufactured CDs are codes indicating master copies (matrix numbers) of discs. These codes begin with a 4-letter prefix followed by a series of digits. Common prefixes include the following:
DIDC – Classical recordings released on Sony-affiliated record labels.[citation needed]
DIDP – Popular (i.e., non-classical) recordings released on Sony-affiliated record labels.[citation needed]
DIDX – Recordings pressed by DADC for release on non-Sony-affiliated record labels.[citation needed]
DIDY – Recordings pressed by the US division of DADC for the Columbia House Record Club.
DIDZ – Recordings released on WEA Japan (only used from 1983 to 1985).
CDRM - CD-ROM titles
LDVS - Standard Laserdiscs
LDTA - THX & AC-3 Laserdiscs
LDTX - THX Laserdiscs
LDAC - AC-3 Laserdiscs
DVSS - Single-layer DVDs
DVDL - Dual-layer DVDs
DDLD - "CD" side of DualDiscs
DDHD - DVD side of DualDiscs
AULD - "CD" side of DualDiscs containing DVD-Audio
AUHD - DVD side of DualDiscs containing DVD-Audio
SUSS - Single-layer Super Audio CDs
SUDL - Dual-layer Super Audio CDs
STLD or SULD - CD layer of hybrid Super Audio CDs
SUHD - Super Audio CD layer of hybrid Super Audio CDs
