Audiophiles can finally embrace the laser

I'm a bad music listener. By fanatical Audiophilic standards, I just plain suck.

I've never been into vinyl (though I can somewhat appreciate the "warmer" tones a good record produces), and had a fairly brief obsessive CD buying stage, before I realized music was way easier to download.

As a result, the majority of my music listening comes via compressed sound files - MP3, WMA and the like. While I do have a penchant for good headphones (Koss' "the plug" are fantastic), I've never really seen the point in lossless codecs such as FLAC. 700MB+ for an album of music? Uuh no thanks.

Anyways, in theory, MP3s at a high enough bitrate should be basically indistinguishable from CD quality. A key component of MP3 compression is the removal of ranges of sound the human ear can't phyiscally perceive, and therefore surely cannot miss. But I digress.

For those fanatics out there for whom everything I've just said is total hooey, there is new hope for your gradually deteriorating record collection. I give you: the laser LP turntable!

It's really rather spiffy:

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.

Even I, who have no interest whatsoever in LPs, finds that pretty cool. Not enough to justify the $15,000 retail price, but cool nonetheless.