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Laser Turntable: the Rolls-Royce of record players

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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?

 
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(4) Comments

craig:
There was a laser turntable back in the late 70's and since this new one doesn't enter the digital domain, I'm sure...More »


Comments

By mtje12 at 6:37 PM ON 01/20/08

look it a record-rom

By Fonugraf at 8:13 AM ON 05/22/08

Mmmmmm..... would need to hear it to beleive it !

By buschelche at 4:31 PM ON 09/19/08

yes, my friends. i wanto believe it too, or is it a joke? are there any more informations about this laser turntable? and what about other record formats and speed?
please inform me via email.

greetings from germany.
buschelche

By craig at 11:38 PM ON 01/12/09

There was a laser turntable back in the late 70's and since this new one doesn't enter the digital domain, I'm sure the technology is similar.

For $15,000 I would have love to see a digital option so you could scan an entire side of a record for archiving purposes as well as play the record at a much higher speed to download the audio track into a buffer for digital playback much like a DVR.

I've been an audio purist from Tubes to Shift Registers (Digital) and can see the benefit for a digital option plus maintaining an analog-only reproduction.


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