Laser Turntable- Rewiews
Roman Efimov
From: ro...@zipper.paco.net (Roman Efimov)
Reply-To: ro...@zipper.paco.net
TOKYO, October 27 (Reuter) - In the age of mass-produced digital
electronics, a tiny Japanese company is hand-crafting a
counter-revolutionary dream: the perfect vinyl LP record player,
with no needle.
But there is a hitch, Kaoru Kato, sales manager of the ELP
Corporation, said on Friday. The cheapest version sells for a cool
($19,800). "We can't make money out of them, though every day we
think of ways to make it cheaper," he said.
ELP makes them by hand to order to avoid piling up inventories, and
has sold just 120 players in the four years since it began marketing
them.
The player is the result of a labour of love by Japanese and
American engineers who wanted to preserve as perfectly as possible,
the art recorded on the world's 30 billion LP records, many of which
will never be issued on compact disc.
It uses five lasers, one to measure the width of the disc, two to
track the record groove, and two more to read the sound signals in
it.
As with CD's, there is no physical contact between a stylus and the
recording surface, so records do not wear out with frequent use. And
there is no distoretion from the weight of the needle's cantilever
arm. Blemishes that result in large thuds with a stylus end up as
small clicks.
As well as preserving LP music recorded in the past, the player
also offers the best of both new and old worlds for analogue purists
who never took to CD's digital sound -- sometimes called "thin" or
"sterile" compared with the warmth and fullness of the best LP
recordings.
The player was developed by American engineer Robert Stoddard.
Wanting to turn his development into a product, he came to the land
of Sony and Panasonic and hawked it around the big names in Japanese
consumer electronics.
They all said no, an analogue record player was an anomaly in the
digital era. But eventually he persuaded ELP, which makes audio
parts and imports professional equipment, to take on the project.
Kato says the player, the only one of its kind in the world, sells
to national institutions and music lovers with large record
collections.
I thought all the customers would be doctors and company
presidents, but lots of them are normal salaried workers," he says,
"if they love their records and aren't interested in anything else,
they buy one instead of a new car. It's a question of values."
Not all music listeners enjoy compact discs (CDs). Some audiophiles
still prefer the "warmth" of traditional analog LPs, feeling that
CDs' digital sound is too sharp and cold. But this passionate
minority of vinyl addicts has recently been threatened by the
declining supply of stereo needles and the virtual disappearance of
record players from most audio shops.
A solution to their plight is now at hand...for a price, of course.
ELP Corporation, formerly CTI Japan and originally known as BSR
Japan (a major turtable-maker, founded in 1972 as the first
foreigh-backed audio equipment firm in Japan), is now offeren two
new turntables. One is proced at 2.1 million yen, and the other at a
serious-audiophiles-only 3 million yen (20,000 and 30,000 US
dollars, respectively). The machines do not hurt even the oldest and
most fragile records because no needle ever touches the vinyl: five
laser beams pick up the sound without contacting the record surface.
Two beams are used to pick up sound from the record grooves, another
two work on tracking, and the fifth beam is employed to compensate
for warping or records of different thickness.
The turntables' interior optical systems, which sit on a die-cast
aluminum deck, are fairly complex. Lasers require special parts,
lenses, beam splitters, sensors and mirrors for different functions.
ELP employees manually assemble the whole system, which limits
monthly volume to a few units. As a result, the cost will most
likely remain quite high, says President Sanju Chiba.
The ELP products are based on basic research and engineering done by
two Americans. In 1982, while at Stanford graduate school, Robert E.
Stoddard developed a theory that analog record discs could be played
by a laser-based optical process. He established Finial Technology
in Sunnyvale, California, in December 1983. An electronics engineer,
Robert N. Stark, joined the firm the following month.
While the two were working to develop the laser turntable, Chiba was
busy procuring consumer electronics parts for General Electric Co.
He was named an executive vice-president at General Electric
Technical Services Co., in 1985.
A few uyears later, the two Americans visited Japan in an
unsucessful attempt to find a production partner. chiba, whi had
introduced the pair to major electronics companies, volunteered to
become their partner. In 1988, he became president of CTI Japan. The
CTI staff and the American inventors spent most of 1989 developing
commercial versions of their products.
In 1990, CTI was remaned ELP, and since then has continued to prduce
high-tech turntables.
On Monday, November 18, 1991, the National Library's Music Division
welcomed Sanju Chiba, President and Izumi Tsuchiya, General Manager
Engineering from ELP Corporation of Tokyo, Japan to install their
company's newly developed laser turntable.
The ELP Laser Turntable plays grooved, analog 33.3, 45 or 78 RPM
discs using laser beams instead of the conventional tone arm/stylus
technology. The walls of each groove are illuminated by five laser
beams: two for the left and right channel audio pick-ups, two for
the horizontal tracking (which assures that the audio pick-up is
directly above the center of the groove), and one for the vertical
tracking (which assures that the lasers are at the proper height to
focus on the groove, compensating for warps or discs of varying
thickness). Sensors capture the reflection from the walls and the
system translates the optical imprint into an electrical signal
The turntable plays discs of different diameters and the standard
RPM can be varied to compensate for discs recorded at non-standard
speeds. The aim of the lasers can be adjusted to compensate for
groove damage and variable groove widths.
At start-up, the turntable scans the disc taking note of blank
spaces between tracks. With this information, the turntable can be
programmed to play certain tracks or can be instructed to jump
directly to the next track (or the beginning of the current
track)--capabilities similar to those of a CD player.
The most obvious and important advantage of this new technology is
that there is no direct physical contact between record groove and
turntable. Since there is no contact, there is virtually no chance
of damaging an audio document during playback. Discs that might be
too fragile to play on a conventional turntable can be played
successfully and a surrogate created. Also, the drawbacks associated
with the traditional tone arm-stylus combination, such as drag,
inertia, rumble or acoustic feedback are absent.
The Music Division is proud to add this new technology to its audio
studio, and is confident that the ELP Laser Turntable will play an
important role in its preservation activities for many years to
come.
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With best regards,
Roman Efimov
ro...@paco.net
ro...@rtl.odessa.ua