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Digital Needle: Ripping vinyl records with a scanner (2013)

cs.huji.ac.il

71–80 of 107 posts

Re: Digital Needle: Ripping vinyl records with a scanner (2013)

#71
post #9

I remember wondering whether a laser "needle" could work. IIRC the format has some funky EQ and other things to make a physical needle work better.

not cheap, but yeah it works great. https://www.elpj.com/ I actually got to hear one once. Extremely neutral and high-res, but the record has to be super clean because with the laser, you will hear every little speck of dust. Also it doesn't work with colored vinyl, iirc. edit: they use 5 different lasers to get the data out of the groove, go read the section on their site, it's actually really intricate and cool > t…

So how did this work when the ‘amplifier’ was just a giant horn?

Re: Digital Needle: Ripping vinyl records with a scanner (2013)

#72
post #52

Now I'm dreaming about a program that would simply play a high-res photograph (scan) of a vinyl disk... This also reminds me of the idea to use paper for archival. This is based on two factors: that modern office paper is extremely durable (and is likely to outlast most of the other physical media out there), and that scanners are (and have been for years now) extremely high-resolution; so, you can simply print the b…

Like the old Cauzin Strip Reader.

Re: Digital Needle: Ripping vinyl records with a scanner (2013)

#73
post #52

Now I'm dreaming about a program that would simply play a high-res photograph (scan) of a vinyl disk... This also reminds me of the idea to use paper for archival. This is based on two factors: that modern office paper is extremely durable (and is likely to outlast most of the other physical media out there), and that scanners are (and have been for years now) extremely high-resolution; so, you can simply print the b…

Coding Horror has an overview of some paper based archive options: https://blog.codinghorror.com/the-paper-data-storage-option/

Re: Digital Needle: Ripping vinyl records with a scanner (2013)

#74
Carl Haber, a guy I worked with at LBNL[1] about twenty years ago pioneered this technique, at least as far as I know. The really cool thing about it is how it can be used to play very fragile recordings without damaging them.

"The method has been used to successfully play several recordings for the first time, including an 1860 phonautogram, the oldest known sound recording of a human voice, and the only known recording of Alexander Graham Bell’s voice."

[1] https://www.macfound.org/fellows/class-of-2013/carl-haber

Re: Digital Needle: Ripping vinyl records with a scanner (2013)

#75
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

not cheap, but yeah it works great. https://www.elpj.com/ I actually got to hear one once. Extremely neutral and high-res, but the record has to be super clean because with the laser, you will hear every little speck of dust. Also it doesn't work with colored vinyl, iirc. edit: they use 5 different lasers to get the data out of the groove, go read the section on their site, it's actually really intricate and cool > t…

> it works great. It does not work great. The problem is dirt, which sounds like a minor issue, but it renders the concept almost completely useless. A stylus pushes dirt out of the groove as the record turns. A laser cannot do so, and it's virtually impossible to fully clean a record. The only remaining advantage is that a laser turntable does not wear out the disc, and it's an incredibly minor advantage, compared t…

Like I said, I literally heard it. The guy cleaned the record just before playing it and it sounded amazing. Doing that each time would be a huge hassle so I'm not sure if I would ever want to own one.

But I did hear it, and it did work great.

Re: Digital Needle: Ripping vinyl records with a scanner (2013)

#76
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

not cheap, but yeah it works great. https://www.elpj.com/ I actually got to hear one once. Extremely neutral and high-res, but the record has to be super clean because with the laser, you will hear every little speck of dust. Also it doesn't work with colored vinyl, iirc. edit: they use 5 different lasers to get the data out of the groove, go read the section on their site, it's actually really intricate and cool > t…

So how did this work when the ‘amplifier’ was just a giant horn?

Early 78RPM records only played for a few minutes per side, the grooves were very widely spaced.

Re: Digital Needle: Ripping vinyl records with a scanner (2013)

#77
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some humans can hear much higher than 20khz. Very little of our recording and playback equipment does well above that point, however, so efforts to reproduce that part of the spectrum most often fail miserably. CD's are certainly good enough for now.

The only source I could find about humans hearing above 20 kHz is this paper reporting that some people could detect tones up to 28 kHz: https://asa.scitation.org/doi/10.1121/1.2761883 But that is for a pure tone under perfect laboratory conditions. Also, they report that the minimum hearing threshold at those frequencies was above 90 dB. So I don't think any human in this planet can actually hear anything above 20 k…

Couldn't beat[1] in the audible range occur from signals above 20kHz?

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beat_(acoustics)

Re: Digital Needle: Ripping vinyl records with a scanner (2013)

#78

Stero channels aren't encoded in the depth and radial axes. They're encoded in the same plane, but rotated 45 degrees, so a mono record player (depth only) plays a balanced sum of each channel. Edit: mono is radial only, not depth.

Edison diamond discs use the bottom of the groove rather than the walls.

Re: Digital Needle: Ripping vinyl records with a scanner (2013)

#79
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, the best example of teaching minimalism I know. Even though the website fails on so many levels, ;-) I still get the message in 15 seconds.

This website, as well as the one in the thread's URL, are exactly in the way as I learned the WWW was when I first started using it.

It fits its theme ... vinyl

Re: Digital Needle: Ripping vinyl records with a scanner (2013)

#80
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some humans can hear much higher than 20khz. Very little of our recording and playback equipment does well above that point, however, so efforts to reproduce that part of the spectrum most often fail miserably. CD's are certainly good enough for now.

The only source I could find about humans hearing above 20 kHz is this paper reporting that some people could detect tones up to 28 kHz: https://asa.scitation.org/doi/10.1121/1.2761883 But that is for a pure tone under perfect laboratory conditions. Also, they report that the minimum hearing threshold at those frequencies was above 90 dB. So I don't think any human in this planet can actually hear anything above 20 k…

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