Old Floppy Drive Becomes New Turntable

vinyl1 writes "This must be the ultimate in retro-cool hardware hacking. The floppy drive is obsolete, but the turntable is not, and that got one guy to thinking. He provides a full tutorial on how to turn that worthless old floppy drive into a most desirable piece of audio gear."

Comments

I've always wanted to do something like this

[ReformedExCon]

There are some times I wish I had spent a little more time studying electronics than doing other things, and this is definitely one of those times. The most impressive part of the project is the variable resistor that allows him to control turntable speed manually. Unfortunately for me, I haven't got the knowledge, much less the gumption, to figure something like that out on my own.

I don't suppose he tested the torque of the motor to see how quickly he could get the record to playing speed. That's one of the key features that I understand to be important to audiophiles. And for the DJs, I imagine they are interested in what sort of clutch (?) mechanism there is that could help the motor recover from an accidental reversing of direction.

Seriously, I need to go to Barnes & Noble and pick up a book on basic electronics. It's one of those itches that I just haven't had the resources to scratch.

Use a Scanner

[pklong]

Not as impressive as the LP Ripper using a scanner.

Re:Use a Scanner

[BetterThanCaesar]

Standard plug: We did roughly the same thing, but with 78 RPMs. Of course, it sounded much better, because of the lower resolution of 78 RPM disks.

http://www.s3.kth.se/signal/edu/projekt/students/0 3/lightblue/

Re:There is something beautiful about ...

[Vo0k]

In the good old times when 8 bits was the data word size, I got a vinyl record with songs of some band. And the last track was a program for ZX Spectrum - a quiz about the band. To use it you had to copy the track to tape and then load in the tape-recorder of the computer. Never got around to do this, but I still have the record somewhere.
Not booting, but...

Re:The patent finally expired, I guess.

[Zeinfeld]

Actually Stodartt was not the first person to think about reading a vinyl recod using a laser, or even the first to succeed. Philips did this for VIDEO with Laservision.

While working on the Laservision scheme the Philips engineers realized that what they should do instead is completely redesign the system from scratch. They joined up with a group of Sony engineers working on a similar project and the result is known as Compact Disc.

What this guy has done is to turn his floppy drive into (part of) a gramophone. In other words he has turned a recently obsolete technology into an even more obsolete technology.

Vinyl records were a dreadful technology. They scratched, they wore out and the sound from them was distorted in all sorts of ways by the production process. Worst of all they allowed 'audiophiles' an excuse to spend $15,000 plus on equipment and then brag about it at tedious length.

The high end market for audio equipment is essentially a high tech version of the fortune teller industry. The service is essentially a fraud; if there is a difference in sound it is negligible. People pay for it because of the flummery thaqt surrounds it.

This guy has just discovered that you can get a high quality motor for about a buck.