Product: Audio: Record Player
Optical Record Player   (+2, -1)  [vote for, against]
Scanning laser replaces needle in phonograph

Vinyl records provide great quality analogue (spelling?)sound, but the scratchy records eventually damage the records and wear out.

If there was another way to read a record without actually touching it, you could preserve the record. Technology similar to optical computer mice or radar might be able to read the grooves of a record, with either digital or analogue output.

You could even have a phonograph in your car or computer (at least a 45 rpm).
-- discontinuuity, Jul 29 2005

ELP turntables http://www.elpj.com/
Japanese-American partnership that spent tens of millions developing the laser/optical turntable. [bristolz, Jul 29 2005]

good idea but not all for the car thing unless they make new mobile optical phonographs [+]
-- Sudok, Jul 29 2005


Ho Hum.

Please do a little research before posting... this is pretty baked.

"Optical Record Player" gets 26 Google hits, latest Audio Engineering Society Journal has a nice article on just this. "Optical Phonograph" gets 235.

All very expensive.
-- csea, Jul 29 2005


So can you actually buy one? How much? I wasn't able to find the article you described.
-- discontinuuity, Jul 29 2005


Bring money. The prices are non-trivial.
-- bristolz, Jul 29 2005


Not cheap but certainly baked - I think that the Baird video/phonograph records were scanned optically when they were restored recently. I'll see if I can find a link.
-- coprocephalous, Jul 29 2005


Croissant for clever thought, at least. It's not widely baked, and it certainly seems worth spending tens of millions on, at least to some people.
-- baconbrain, Jul 29 2005


Ian, that's a good one. A really good flatbed scanner might work, too, with the right software.
-- baconbrain, Jul 29 2005


I wonder if all these hi-tech devices would cope with the double groove on the Monty Python Matching Tie and Handkerchief Gift Set?
-- AbsintheWithoutLeave, Jul 29 2005



random, halfbakery