The technology for playing records by 'reading' them has been around for quite a few years, I believe the original example being the Finial turntable that came out in the 80s, later seen as the ELP turntable.
I've seen and heard the ELP 'tables on several occasions, mostly at the Consumer Electronics Show. They require the records to be scrupulously clean in order to avoid read errors and be playable. The sound quality is OK but nothing to write home about.
The guy sounds like a Microsoft salesman, not someone who should be in that position of responsibility. Look at all the MS software boxes behind the computer. A puppet.
A: The multiple projector thing is neat, but who is going to buy 12 projecters to have a higher resolution image? The image quality that can be gotten from a single projector basically maxes out the display quality of the average white wall. Not to mention having 20-odd speakers. Who has room for all that and all the associated gear, not to mention cost and complexity? Anybody remember quadraphonic stereo back in the 70s and what a flop it was? Call me a luddite, but I'd rather have two channels of much higher quality.
It sounds like PC Magazine is trying to 'reinvent' itself. Instead, it is becoming increasingly irrelevant by publishing such fluff. The print magazine is very thin these days and has little to offer. Editorial quality has gone way downhill.
> I found keeping the vinyl inside its paper sleeves kept it quite clean.
Some would argue that standard paper sleeves slightly scratch records.
> But I found that playing them with a mechanical stylus wore them out fairly quickly.
It depends on the cartridge, the tracking force, etc. I have records I bought new in the 70s that are still in excellent shape because they weren't played on cheap record players and were handled carefully.
> Studies I read in the 1980s (in _Stereo Review_, etc, which were clearly trying to sell CDs) showed that records wore down to worse signal:noise than CDs after less than a dozen plays.
Anything you read in Stereo Review is highly suspect. Julian Hirsch never heard a piece of gear he didn't like, and all receivers and amps sounded alike. If all you base your opinions on are S/N ratios then you're really missing the boat.
> The laser turntable is $9K because they sell so few, so they target the super hifi market with a lot more than just the laser pickup. Now that laser pickups are super cheap, the whole device (maybe not including ADC) should cost under $150, even with good mechanicals for low wow/flutter.
No way. That's just silly. The ELP laser turntable has five lasers and uses a large number of discrete components. It is very complicated, the same way an old copying machine would be a challenge to work on. If you saw one you'd know. The ELP unit was much more expensive than $9k a few years ago; the 33/45 rpm model was around $13k. I don't doubt the units are/were costly to produce, and from a technical standpoint they are a marvel. Unfortunately they don't deliver the ultimate in sonics. Thus they are usually purchased by record collectors, museums, etc. because in the case of rare old shellacs and such the laser turntable is about the only way to play them without causing damage. For archival purposes they have a value. The cost isn't that much of a factor for some audiophiles. If it really delivered better sound, you'd see them around. The truth is, they aren't competitive with conventional high end turntables, and people lose interest in something that has to be shipped to Japan for service.
No thanks. Records have to be scrupulously clean, and you can still have problems. It's expensive, and for the same or less money you can get much better performance with a conventional turntable. The discouraging thing about the laser turntable is it is complex and can require shipping to Japan for service. I clean my records with a state of the art record cleaning machine, but when it comes to playback I strongly prefer conventional equipment because it simply sounds better. And as long as you keep your records and stylus clean, have your cartridge and tonearm properly set up and avoid excessive tracking force, record wear is not a significant concern.
1. Old version works 2. New one still doesn't 3. Force everybody to buy the new one 4. Tech support inundated with calls to work around what should have been fixed years ago 5. Charge people for support. "Did you want to upgrade to SP8 for just $49.95?" 6. a) Profit!
b) Throw chairs when people dump Microsoft 7. Developers! Developers! Developers! 8. Repeat #1 thru 7 as often as you wish
Yeah, picture a whole slew of 82161A digital cassette drives whirring away copying tapes (128 KB each). We did that at the 1985 Atlanta HP handheld users conference - I had 8 of the drives hooked up to my HP-75C running MCOPY. Of course each drive needed to have an AC charger hooked up, because if one drive's battery died halfway through the copying, the whole mass copying process failed. The "front runners" had 9114A disc drives. And who could forget (please!) the 2225B ThinkJet printer? I still have all that stuff, and an HP-IL 7470A pen plotter...
Give me HP-41CX functionality and keystroke programmability, but lots faster and with plenty of RAM. Give me USB connectivity and an SD card slot like on the 49g+ and 50g. Most important, give me a rock solid reliable keyboard where I don't have to look at the display to make sure the keys I pressed actually registered. While you're at it, give me double injection molded keys with the characters molded into the keys so they'll never wear off, not painted on (I'm probably dreaming on this one). And for us old timers, put the darn Enter key back where it belongs. Feel like giving us a multiline display? Great. Let us scroll back and forth through the RPN stack. Clock and calendar functions are desirable features, as are the basic financial functions.
Based on what I know and have heard from very reliable sources, HP is back - I mean the "good old" HP we thought was gone. Stay tuned for exciting times. The HP handheld users conference (link is to last year's) to be held in the fall will be one of the focal points for all of this to be announced.
> It's a fairly limited market now, made up of DJs and insane people.
I resemble that remark because not only do I have thousands of LPs, I own and sell high end turntables, tonearms, cartridges and accessories. And hey, guess what, the market demand is steady, albeit not large.
It's kind of funny how things have come full circle after all these years of the CD being touted as "perfect sound forever". CD players and the like have become very, very good compared with what we had 20 years or more ago, though. Some contenders for state of the art in CD playback feature USB inputs; ironically a new one I have coming soon that has a USB input uses new old stock tubes in the output stage.
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The technology for playing records by 'reading' them has been around for quite a few years, I believe the original example being the Finial turntable that came out in the 80s, later seen as the ELP turntable.
I've seen and heard the ELP 'tables on several occasions, mostly at the Consumer Electronics Show. They require the records to be scrupulously clean in order to avoid read errors and be playable. The sound quality is OK but nothing to write home about.
When soldiers wearing such devices attack the enemy, will it be a case of assault with battery?
Geek Squad ought to get a grip. Oops, maybe that's the source of their problem.
The guy sounds like a Microsoft salesman, not someone who should be in that position of responsibility. Look at all the MS software boxes behind the computer. A puppet.
Carry on.
Maybe so, but I'm willing to test it for them.
It sounds like PC Magazine is trying to 'reinvent' itself. Instead, it is becoming increasingly irrelevant by publishing such fluff. The print magazine is very thin these days and has little to offer. Editorial quality has gone way downhill.
By the way, who was chairing the conference?
> I don't even use a spelling or grammar checker anymore.
Maybe you should.
It's what all the wannabe Draculas will be drinking at Halloween.
Do you get two Blue Screens of Death for the price of one?
Does the open source community like Microsoft?
Silly question. Next.
> I found keeping the vinyl inside its paper sleeves kept it quite clean.
Some would argue that standard paper sleeves slightly scratch records.
> But I found that playing them with a mechanical stylus wore them out fairly quickly.
It depends on the cartridge, the tracking force, etc. I have records I bought new in the 70s that are still in excellent shape because they weren't played on cheap record players and were handled carefully.
> Studies I read in the 1980s (in _Stereo Review_, etc, which were clearly trying to sell CDs) showed that records wore down to worse signal:noise than CDs after less than a dozen plays.
Anything you read in Stereo Review is highly suspect. Julian Hirsch never heard a piece of gear he didn't like, and all receivers and amps sounded alike. If all you base your opinions on are S/N ratios then you're really missing the boat.
> The laser turntable is $9K because they sell so few, so they target the super hifi market with a lot more than just the laser pickup. Now that laser pickups are super cheap, the whole device (maybe not including ADC) should cost under $150, even with good mechanicals for low wow/flutter.
No way. That's just silly. The ELP laser turntable has five lasers and uses a large number of discrete components. It is very complicated, the same way an old copying machine would be a challenge to work on. If you saw one you'd know. The ELP unit was much more expensive than $9k a few years ago; the 33/45 rpm model was around $13k. I don't doubt the units are/were costly to produce, and from a technical standpoint they are a marvel. Unfortunately they don't deliver the ultimate in sonics. Thus they are usually purchased by record collectors, museums, etc. because in the case of rare old shellacs and such the laser turntable is about the only way to play them without causing damage. For archival purposes they have a value. The cost isn't that much of a factor for some audiophiles. If it really delivered better sound, you'd see them around. The truth is, they aren't competitive with conventional high end turntables, and people lose interest in something that has to be shipped to Japan for service.
No thanks. Records have to be scrupulously clean, and you can still have problems. It's expensive, and for the same or less money you can get much better performance with a conventional turntable. The discouraging thing about the laser turntable is it is complex and can require shipping to Japan for service. I clean my records with a state of the art record cleaning machine, but when it comes to playback I strongly prefer conventional equipment because it simply sounds better. And as long as you keep your records and stylus clean, have your cartridge and tonearm properly set up and avoid excessive tracking force, record wear is not a significant concern.
of a story posted here 3 weeks ago, Record Labels Struggle With the Album's Demise. So, which is it? Myself, I'd say LPs are doing OK.
1. Old version works
2. New one still doesn't
3. Force everybody to buy the new one
4. Tech support inundated with calls to work around what should have been fixed years ago
5. Charge people for support. "Did you want to upgrade to SP8 for just $49.95?"
6. a) Profit!
b) Throw chairs when people dump Microsoft
7. Developers! Developers! Developers!
8. Repeat #1 thru 7 as often as you wish
Yeah, picture a whole slew of 82161A digital cassette drives whirring away copying tapes (128 KB each). We did that at the 1985 Atlanta HP handheld users conference - I had 8 of the drives hooked up to my HP-75C running MCOPY. Of course each drive needed to have an AC charger hooked up, because if one drive's battery died halfway through the copying, the whole mass copying process failed. The "front runners" had 9114A disc drives. And who could forget (please!) the 2225B ThinkJet printer? I still have all that stuff, and an HP-IL 7470A pen plotter...
Give me HP-41CX functionality and keystroke programmability, but lots faster and with plenty of RAM. Give me USB connectivity and an SD card slot like on the 49g+ and 50g. Most important, give me a rock solid reliable keyboard where I don't have to look at the display to make sure the keys I pressed actually registered. While you're at it, give me double injection molded keys with the characters molded into the keys so they'll never wear off, not painted on (I'm probably dreaming on this one). And for us old timers, put the darn Enter key back where it belongs. Feel like giving us a multiline display? Great. Let us scroll back and forth through the RPN stack. Clock and calendar functions are desirable features, as are the basic financial functions.
Based on what I know and have heard from very reliable sources, HP is back - I mean the "good old" HP we thought was gone. Stay tuned for exciting times. The HP handheld users conference (link is to last year's) to be held in the fall will be one of the focal points for all of this to be announced.
It means J00 4R3 0WN3D
who formulated Cole's Law, especially when eating ribs.
whose bright idea was this?
who weighs about 150 while I weigh 210. I guess you could say I'm much more identical than my twin!
> It's a fairly limited market now, made up of DJs and insane people.
I resemble that remark because not only do I have thousands of LPs, I own and sell high end turntables, tonearms, cartridges and accessories. And hey, guess what, the market demand is steady, albeit not large.
It's kind of funny how things have come full circle after all these years of the CD being touted as "perfect sound forever". CD players and the like have become very, very good compared with what we had 20 years or more ago, though. Some contenders for state of the art in CD playback feature USB inputs; ironically a new one I have coming soon that has a USB input uses new old stock tubes in the output stage.
Information Week use F5 Big-IP servers and Apache?