A Turntable For The Future

[Marsbar]

Laser Turntable: the Rolls-Royce of record players



Love the sound of your old vinyl records, but long for the convenience of a CD? You might just be in luck. ELP Corporation is finally introducing its Laser Turntable to the U.S.A. and Canada this summer. Working like a CD player, the turntable shoots out a laser beam to scan the surface of a vinyl record, even allowing you to pause the music and seek forward and backward.

For hardcore vinyl fans who might fear the technology will "digitize" their records' pure analog sound, the audio information is reproduced without converting to digital, so true analog fidelity is maintained. And thanks to the precision of the laser, the turntable is said to bring out acoustic details in the music that you never knew were there.

It can also play records that have been severely warped or damaged over the years, and because it's a laser it won't deteriorate the surface with each playback. At $15,000, the laser turntable isn't cheap, but can you really put a price on elevating your vinyl collection to the highest fidelity? — Peter Suciu

[Marsbar]

IF you're thinking it might be nice to have one of those Laser Turntables - it's selling for about $9,000 US.

[MoodyBlue]

That is a great idea, but at $9K it is out of my snack braket.

$500.00 ten years from now??

Cheers

John

[Marsbar]

At 9 Grand I'm thinking - not a lot of folks will be putting this one on the shelf. Meanwhile - there is a reported explosion of vinyl taking place, seemingly increasing the demand for turntables.

[Marsbar]

3D-Printed Record

The nostalgic return to vinyl LP records is endearing, in a way, but no one expects the digital music recording industry to start producing the large discs in mass quantities again. The rise of 3D printing, however, offers the intriguing possibility of printing your own 33RPMs at home.

Researcher and Instructables DIY project site team member Amanda Ghassaei has created what may be the world’s first 3D-printed, playable LP records. Ghassaei wrote the code that transforms any audio file into a 3D file that can be created via the high-resolution Objet Connex 500 3D printer.

Instructable team member Karen Howard gave us a brief demo at SXSW 2013’s Creator Tent, which was filled with 3D printed projects and other incredibly cool DIY electronics projects and innovations.

Traditional LP’s are pressed in vinyl and are, in fact, a much higher resolution than the final Objet output, which prints the resin-based albums, layer-by-layer in a diagonal fashion. In fact, faint lines that traverse the diameter of the white records are clearly visible.

There are other limitations: the final product is stiffer than vinyl LPs (rather like the really old-school 78 RPMs); the playable portion is only printed on one side; and the bit rate is, at a lowly 1 kHz, one-fourth they typical bit rate found on a standard MP3 file. That said, in our brief hands — and ears — on, the records did play on a standard record player, and the audio is clearly recognizable music.

In time, the resolution and bit rate may improve, which could lead to a boom in home-printed, classic LPs. Our suggestion? Don’t throw out that old turntable just yet.

Get a closer look at the technology in the video above and then let us know in the comments below if you're ready to start spinning tunes again.

[MoodyBlue]

A problem with vynl records is the space that they take up on store shelves. After the market shifted to tapes and CD's a record store did not need as much space to sell music and that would save on rent.

Sam the Record Man on Yonge street was at least 3 floors of music, I do not know if they closed the upper floors because thanks to CD's they could get all of the stock on the one floor or expanding into the store next door may have eliminated the need for the upper floors.

New fire regulations may have done that too.

Perhaps a history buff will know.

Cheers

John

[Marsbar]

...and of course the thing that got to me a couple of years back. My leg got screwed up and the weight of the vinyl limited how much I could carry.

[maya11]

In time, the resolution and bit rate may improve, which could lead to a boom in home-printed, classic LPs. Our suggestion? Don’t throw out that old turntable just yet.