play, don't touch...

Some things are eternally cool.

Always have been. Always will be.

Vinyl is cool.

But it's not without it's problem. You can scratch it, you can drop it. Hell you can even wear it out.

Some obsessive collectors don't even want to play some of their more precious records for fear of damaging them.  So imagine how happy they will be to see the EIP Laser Turntable which plays records without touching them. The only problem, the $15,000 price tag.

“The Laser Turntable employs patented technology that produces phenomenal fidelity while never physically touching the record, thus eliminating the deterioration to the album’s surface inflicted by conventional turntables. The laser’s precision allows you to pick up audio information that has never been touched or damaged by a needle. This virgin audio information is then reproduced without digitization maintaining true analog sound as close as possible to when the master tape was recorded. The Laser Turntable even allows you to play records that have been severely warped or damaged over years of wear and tear.” – EIP

But I can't shake my discomfort at how ugly it is!

Shudder..

Talking of ugly. Don't get me started on the now common but very ugly practice of dj's carrying laptops and usb's rather than record bags about. Yes I know it's so much easier. Yes I know you can 'carry more tunes'  and you are not going to give yourself backache or a hernia but the bottom line is, when you pull out a silly little stick, instead of a great big pile of precious records,  it feels slightly like you are cheating me...

Queen Marie