No turntable required! Rokblok, tiny bluetooth-enabled vinyl needle on wheels, is a wonderful disaster

Imagine years down the line someone will make a VHS player that’s worth $15k

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Blu-rays suck. You haven’t actually experienced a movie until you’ve seen it on VHS.

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I really want one (I have a lot of old vinyl that I want to digitise, some it not in good condition), but it’s about 50 times what I can afford.

If some archivist in the future comes across a VHS tape that hasn’t yet been digitized (probably not “prerecorded” material), the VHS machine they’ll used to play back the recording will end up costing several thousand dollars.

I wonder what digitizing records cost, especially ones that might be delicate or not in great condition that can’t (or shouldn’t) be played in a needle turntable. One could potentially buy the laser turntable and digitize records on the side to offset the cost of such a thing.

That’s the badger.

I expect the prices on laser turntables aren’t falling because the small number that would get sold even if the price drops from $15,000 to say $700 would not cover the R&D to do a better design. I would expect 10,000 would be a remarkable number of those to sell so for every $100,000 of R&D effort you increase the cost of the player by $100.

Technology marching forward is good at reducing the cost of things sold in the millions, but not so good at the mere thousands.

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SX300_QL70

No lasers or digitalization needed.

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It’s stupidly malicious of you to recommend such a shitty device. You’re going to ruin your records. You’re advertising something that ruins records. You’re promoting something dumb to dumb people. Do not buy this.

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Considering this record ruining device has existed in some form for decades. No. They just wanted to make a quick buck on idiots.

Kinda cute, and I might get one as a novelty toy.
But I would not use it to “play” any record I care about. The thingy has wheels to drive around - wheels that will scratch the record and push additional dust and dirt into the grooves like a tiny steamroller.

Target group:

Also:

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I’m not sure “wonderful disaster” really counts as promoting a product. Especially not when the post includes a video that demonstrates how horrendously awful and useless it is.
As you say: It’s a record ruining device, and the video clearly demonstrates that this is the only thing the product does reliably.

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I can already foresee the disaster at my house, right after the cat sees this in action…:smile_cat:

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I want one that looks like a locomotive, and an Ozzy album to play to destruction.

All aboard! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

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In this case, I don’t think so. Nostalgia has to do with longings for the past. The Rokblok messes up LPs, which amounts to destroying the past.

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Look at the comments section of the Kickstarter:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pinkdonut/rokblok-a-new-spin-on-vinyl/comments

Not one happy customer.

But then look at the initial demo and wonder why anyone thought this was ever a good idea:

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https://billthompson.us/bt/philco-beam-of-light-restoration/

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I’m guessing you aren’t interested in the bowls I make by melting old vinyl over a stainless steel form…

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