Written by 2:08 am Analog • 5 Comments

The Rise and Fall of the Printed Record

Hey Kids! Want to make your own LP records? Here’s a place to start…



AR-discs1.jpg

Audiophiles who believe that the industry will be only be saved by the
revival of the long playing phonograph record will be delighted to learn that
there’s a new 3-D printing process that claims to be capable of printing photograph
records.

Yes, that was PRINT LPs, just as you would print a letter. On
Instructables web page you can even see what workflow the printer’s creator
used for his conversion from digital file to LP record.

Don’t expect that you can now transform that DSD music file
into an audiophile-quality LP that’s indistinguishable from the original. Currently, according to the author, “
the
audio output from these records has a sampling rate of 11kHz (a quarter of
typical mp3 audio) and 5-6bit resolution (mp3 audio is 16 bit), it is still
easily recognizable.” That may be better than Edison’s original wax cylinder,
but it ain’t gonna make anyone’s superdisc list. It’s still a long way from
reconizability to audiophile quality.

AR-disc2.jpg

But, if this process could be developed further, it is
theoretically possible that audiophiles could begin to make their own LPs
without the need of a record-cutting lathe or in-house mastering engineer. And
that would be fun…but in the meantime, you could always make some records for
your Fisher-Price toy record player
using a CNC mill…

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