A report on AnalogPlanet details and experimental 3D printed “tonearm”. That’s the piece that holds the “needle” that “reads” a vinyl record on a turntable. For those of you who have lived beyond the era of CD’s, a previous era involved “vinyl records”, played by these turntable things.
It turns out they’re still alive and kicking. In fact, many exclaim that audio quality from turntables still exceeds digital sound. And they’re trying to improve it using 3D printing.
The prototype tonearm is produced in a single operation, meaning it has no potentially wobbly joints and is “ultra rigid”.
Evidently this approach is successful as sound produced using a Grado Gold cartridge mounted on the tonearm was said to be “profound”.
However, this is merely a prototype and mass 3D printing tonearms would be prohibitively expensive. But it does work well.
Yay 3D printing!
Via AnalogPlanet (Hat tip to Matt)
