roadcykler wrote:

How long before this is written off as poor sounding quackery by the "experts"?

http://www.elpj.com/

Is it poor-sounding?

That is not the first laser player; there have been others.

The problem is the cost.

The elimination of any contact with the record is an obvious advantage.

I for one would be interested how it sounds. One has to wonder, at the same time, why the high end turntable fanatics didn't embrace the laser turntable lock stock and barrel. You mean someone else was "daft" enough to produce a laser turntable? You know, in a world filled with $50,000 and $100,000 turntables. One wonders how does the laser read the groove, specifically both channels...hmmmm. Are there two lasers, one for each channel?

Cheers,

Geoff Kait
Machina Dynamica

20+ year-old technology.

Been in use at the Library of Congress for a long time.
Many old archived analog recordings, such as wax cylinders have a very limited playback life.
Non-contact transcription provides the means to digitize the materiel without causing wear or possible unintended damage.

Bill - on the Hill
Practicing Curmudgeon & Audio Snob
- just an “ON” switch, Please –

I was under the impression the library of congress used Simon Yorke transcription turntables, the ones with tonearms and cartridges. Oh, well.....

Geoff Kait
Machina Dynamica

My understanding is they have five lasers: one to track vertical height, two to track the boundaries of the groove to provide radial tracking, and a laser each for both sides of the groove. And with a fixed frequency laser doing the reading, the Doppler effect of the "wiggling" groove would provide changes to the frequency of the reflected light, and the differences from the original frequency would indicate the frequency of the recording - like fm radio works.

It only works with black records, and it is apparently very sensitive to dirt. But they say the lasers read above the needle groove damage to get a virginal playback of played-smooth vinyl, and you can set broken record pieces together to play a previously unplayable record.

But my favorite records aren't black...sigh. Oh - and I don't have roughly 10 large to drop on a sweet new laser turntable. But I have daydreamed...