Laser Turntable on ABC News

Well well, lookie here http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/FutureTech/story?id=721206&page=1

Too bad they cant write an aritcle on a VPI TNT or something like that But at least someone is looking at vinyl!

 

You know right before CD's came out - 82 or so. I remember reading in Rolling Stone or somewhere like that about the eminent arrival of laser turntables, but then CD players came out and all that got lost. I certainly felt at the time that technology was going in that direction.

 

Love the misinformation on Compact Discs that's still being put out by the media 23 years after CDs were first introduced:

Right, CDs are scratch resistant.

 

...compared to DVD's they are! I accidentally stepped on a CD that fell out of the case onto the floor and wound up under my foot! I sorta spun around on it a few times...Still played perfectly!...a speck of dust can make a DVD skip...

 

Right, CDs scratch and develop tick/pops/skips as easily as vinyl does...

 

Notice that the article mentions billions of existing records but doesn't acknowledge that new records are still being produced.

 

These articles are written for the mass consumers; they are not written with people like us in mind. To the mass consumers, they are surprised that turntables and records are still being made. To many of the music buyers nowdays, they have never even seen a record in action.

 

All I'm saying is that you have to treat them carefully. They don't by any means resist scratches. They certainly skip-skip-skip badly when there's a big scratch on them. Vinyl won't break down over the years either. We don't know how long CDs will be playable.

 

May I rant:

"obscure if not obsolete" - needs no additional ranting.

"smaller, scratch-resistant audio compact discs" and "which can produce annoying popping sounds and skips in the music" - This always gets me. I don't have a single record that I got new that I made an audible scratch in or that skips on a prperly set-up turntable. I wish I could say the same for my CDs.

Well, actually the article is pretty good after that. But why does everyone in the non-audiophile press feel the need to dis LPs up front. They could have easilly written the article without that.

Mark K

 

Ah, yes - Steve Hoffman and Eydie Gorme. One of my favorite duos...