Ivan. ( If you see a coin, I’m trying to hide under it.)

Ivan.

I’d much rather see someone use that bad boy (rover motor) in a telescope mount. At least amateur astronomers can often see (or, rather, image) the results of their big-bucks expenditures with objectively improved performance. (Just to keep the discussion on-topic.)

1. A green, flexible plastic glow-in-the dark “frisbee”,

…the disc, when placed atop a CD in the player would “extend bass and treble response, reduce background noise and eliminate ‘mushy’ sound.” … the “ultraviolet emanations from the disc were promoting a clean background for the laser scanner in the CD player,”

2. A CD “Demagnetizer”.

“Demagnetizer?” I said. He then showed me a machine selling for around $300 that, when a CD was placed inside, would “sense the magnetic field surrounding the disc and ‘clean’ it of this field.” He said that the machine would “sometimes activate for a second or two, and sometimes for several seconds, depending on the level of magnetization found on the disc.” Apparently, residual magnetization causes problems with the laser reading the pits on the disc, and that this device would “extend highs and lows and clean up ‘muddy’ sound.”

http://www.randi.org/jr/04-20-2001.html
(Scroll down to “Don Reid brings up a favorite subject of mine,…”)

3. P.W.B. Red ‘x’ Pen

“Apparently, according to this site, you can improve all kinds of audio devices or recording media performance just by writing “O.K.” on them — or a piece of tape stuck on them — with a “specially treated” marker pen. Writing “NO” makes things sound much worse….”

This is the fabulous “Red ‘x’ Pen” that you can have for a mere US$87!

4. P.W.B. Silver Rainbow Foil

“These shiny little devil-strips are supposed to work their effects just by placing them on pretty much anything in the system — or the house, for that matter.”

5. $230 each Shakti Stones

The Shakti Stones, fortunately, don’t even have to be connected to your sound system, but can be simply placed nearby, to produce wonderful improvements!

http://www.randi.org/jr/073004an.html#3

And the joke I always chuckled at was the thought that the wiring just before the speaker outlet connectors was plain old hook-up wire, as was the wiring in the speaker box itself. All that Superpure wire in the middle of plain wire. If the golden tones were ever produced in the transistors or valves, (showing my age!), they were immediately compromised by the first few molecules of copperwire, ordinary copper wire, helped along with tin/lead solder. Such nonsense to relieve gullible people of their cash.

There were many more legitimate ways to improve the system sound. It may have needed heavier gauge wire, and adequate provision for impedance, inductance, and a few other xxxxances. Or a better speaker system, better amp or probable better music!

Getting back on topic, did you really look at the motor in the photos of the Turntable system? In the first link provided, there is a close-up, and, here is the reason Phil linked the topic to astronomy, it is supposed to be a motor used on the Mars Rover. It may not be a drive motor, but who knows? Any clues anybody? It may be used for some other task, seems too small otherwise. I seem to remember an Australian turntable-Silcron, I think- that used a very small motor and a very resiliant drive belt which ran around the outside edge of the turntable platter, and it need a gentle push to get it up to running even. Took quite a few seconds to stabilise. Once there it had exceptional wow and flutter figures. But murder on warped records!

Ah, the good old days.

Ivan.

Why not at least culminating in a laser beam that reads the vinyl grooves instead of an old-fashioned stylus?

There are such things.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_turntable

http://www.snopes.com/music/media/marker.htm

Regards
rajesh

Why not at least culminating in a laser beam that reads the vinyl grooves instead of an old-fashioned stylus?

I know someone who bought a couple of 2 meter speaker cables for $2,000 EACH! No that’s not a typo… two-thousand dollars for 6 feet of copper wire.

There truly is a sucker born every minute. For example:
http://www.lastfactory.com/audiophile_cables/audiophile_cables.html