ELP turntable (the laser driven one)

[maxg]

Got to hear it today - against a Clearaudio TT with a normal arm and a Stradivarius cartrdige.

One word:

Bizzare!

Now if you are thinking of buying this for home use the most important thing to remember is that you will be certified and put into an asylum if you follow up on it. This is not a device for home use or normal listening.

Why?

Well lets put it like this. I have about 1000 records in my collection at the moment. I would guess 50 would play with acceptable levels of background noise - the rest wound be barely audible above the hiss. If there is dust on the disk - you hear it - hell - if there is dust on the machine that pressed the disk you can hear it. If there is dandruff on the head of the man that ran the press - you can hear it.

Are you getting the picture? If a stated aim of your listening is a black background this is brilliant white. Sure - when you can hear the music it is with a level of detail I have certainly never heard from vinyl - but that does not mean that it sounds good - merely different.

The funny thing is there is an ideal use for this machine.

Imagine you are the curator of a museum with old, rare, possibly unique, vinyl records. Playing them damages them right? Wrong - not with the laser TT - it does not come into physical contact with the vinyl.

Saving the music can therefore be done without touching the disk - straight into whatever digital format you want on your computer (24/96 WAV for example). There is would be relatively simple to strip out the extra noise and salvage the music.

The company that sells this thing must be mad - that is the market for the player - not the general public.

Just MHO of course.

[Mallette]

The dust/dandruff/micrometeorite stuff you are hearing is ideally and perfectly removable via digital means without audibly impacting the signal. These impulse noises have such a distinctive signature they are easilly recognizable. No need for the analog signal to be altered in any way until that sig is seen, then plucked out and spliced electronically. While trully accomplished ears may detect the action if they know were to listen, it sounds better than huge "pop." I've used software versions (Sound Forge Noise Reduction is my favorite) on 24/88.2 and higher LP's I digitized and the results are outstanding. It is basically the same technology of the old SAE Impulse Noise Reduction systems of years past, but pretty near perfected when implemented with newer technology.

To make sure I don't make you shiver, Max, the same technology can be used on an analog signal WITHOUT digitizing it or processing except when a noise is encountered.

Dave

[maxg]

"To make sure I don't make you shiver, Max, the same technology can be used on an analog signal WITHOUT digitizing it or processing except when a noise is encountered."

Brrrrrrrrr!!

Just as a matter of interest one thing this TT does do rather well is play a broken record. We put a record with a large missing segment from the rim (to a depth of about an inch) onto the player and it played fine - with just a silence where the vinyl was missing.

Impressive - as this is obviously not something you can achieve with a normal player - but of limited use I would imagine.