At long last, copy your digital collection to vinyl! Options

[Apesbrain]

http://www.engadget.com/2012/12/21/3d-printed-record/

Enjoy the video!

[splice]

The "stairstepping" of the printed groove walls is what causes the "fire siren" background sound. It's noticeable, but not as bad as you imply. The actual music distortion is due to two causes: Lack of RIAA pre-equalisation, and lack of printer resolution (the "wiggles" in the groove walls for the higher frequencies are smaller than the printer resolution.)

The point is not that the quality is poor at the moment. Printers (and thus the quality) will improve, and their costs will drop.

[mzil]

The "stairstepping" of the printed groove walls is what causes the "fire siren" background sound. It's noticeable, but not as bad as you imply.

Considering normal records have absolutley none, I would consider it completly unlistenable, but if you deem it "not so bad", so be it.

To the needle, as it plays these impossible to properly track squares, the signal seems to be a signal which alternates between square waves to triangular waves, twice per 1.8 second rotation: square, triangle, square, triangle and then back to square. But since it largely just smashes through ignoring them, all we hear is the fire siren whine rendition. [and yes, some music too]

Lack of RIAA pre-equalisation

If that's true, then we also aren't hearing this LP played back with RIAA de-empasis either, via a phono preamp, because the music we hear does have a fairly normal bass content and is not thin and squeaky. [The "LP" play time per side would be much smaller too.]

I'm not claiming this method might not eventually be just as good if not better than conventional cutterheads and lathes as 3D printers improve (if there was any reason to continue making LPs), I'm just commenting on how terrible this version sounds, at least to my ears.

This post has been edited by mzil: Dec 22 2012, 04:50

[splice]

The "stairstepping" of the printed groove walls is what causes the "fire siren" background sound. It's noticeable, but not as bad as you imply.

Considering normal records have absolutley none, I would consider it completly unlistenable, but if you deem it "not so bad", so be it.

Of course it's not "listenable" compared to a traditional LP. My point was that even at 600 dpi, it works as a proof of concept. Do you remember the grainy image display on early PCs? 640x480x16 colours? That's about where this "proof of concept" is now. And look how far display image resolution has come...

...
I'm not claiming this method might not eventually be just as good if not better than conventional cutterheads and lathes as 3D printers improve (if there was any reason to continue making LPs), I'm just commenting on how terrible this version sounds, at least to my ears.

Like I said, "The point is not that the quality is poor at the moment. Printers (and thus the quality) will improve, and their costs will drop."

One of the barriers to LP production is the minimum quantity. Like pressing CDs, there's a setup cost to be amortised. The setup cost for CDs can be avoided by using CDRs for small runs. If a "printed" LP can be made with similar fidelity to a pressed LP, the setup cost can likewise be avoided. Given a high enough resolution, a printed LP could sound better than a pressed LP because it avoids the significant limitations imposed by the current production method. (Cutter head limitations, especially at HF. Generational loss though the plating / mother / stamper production process. Stamper wear and handling damage.)