Here's what George Blood, the digitizer, reports:
"laser turntables are designed to play 33rpm discs. Most will not spin at 78rpm. There is broad agreement they do not sound as good as stylus playback. I.R.E.N.E. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRENE_(technology)) captures the disc as an image, then transforms that into sound. It is not way slower than real time, and while it is arguable that the resolution of the image is superior to stylus playback, the software is not yet able to produce results as good as stylus playback. And it introduces it’s own, idiomatic noise spectrum. On the other hand it is far and away the best system for ‘playing’ damaged or compromised discs, such as lacquers that are beginning to delaminate."
Ok, I turned to the expert himself, George Blood, who responded:
"laser turntables are designed to play 33rpm discs. Most will not spin at 78rpm. There is broad agreement they do not sound as good as stylus playback. I.R.E.N.E. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRENE_(technology)) captures the disc as an image, then transforms that into sound. It is not way slower than real time, and while it is arguable that the resolution of the image is superior to stylus playback, the software is not yet able to produce results as good as stylus playback. And it introduces it’s own, idiomatic noise spectrum. On the other hand it is far and away the best system for ‘playing’ damaged or compromised discs, such as lacquers that are beginning to delaminate."
Here's what George Blood, the IA digitization expert, said: "LPs are soft and played with a very small diamond. 78s are made from shellac which is hard and abrasive. Originally they were played with steel needles at 10x the tracking weight used by our modern equipment. They also use a much larger diamond with 5-10x the surface area. The tracking force is spread over a larger area than vinyl playback. The contact pressure is less than 10% of vinyl playback. "
I work with the Internet Archive, and asked George Blood about the wear and tear using a stylus. Here's what he had to say: "LPs are soft and played with a very small diamond. 78s are made from shellac which is hard and abrasive. Originally they were played with steel needles at 10x the tracking weight used by our modern equipment. They also use a much larger diamond with 5-10x the surface area. The tracking force is spread over a larger area than vinyl playback. The contact pressure is less than 10% of vinyl playback. "
Here's what our digitization expert, George Blood, has to say: LPs are soft and played with a very small diamond. 78s are made from shellac which is hard and abrasive. Originally they were played with steel needles at 10x the tracking weight used by our modern equipment. They also use a much larger diamond with 5-10x the surface area. The tracking force is spread over a larger area than vinyl playback. The contact pressure is less than 10% of vinyl playback.
Hey, we are working with Filecoin.ai on a pilot program where their new minors in Filecoin Discover will host some of our open data sets like Prelinger Films and .Gov web pages.
It will be an additional back up to our copies.
We're hosting a DWeb Meetup to share the latest in Filecoin and Storj (two decentralized storage providers we're experimenting with.)
Hey,for those who would like to help the Internet Archive with their excess storage, we are ginning up a project with Filecoin.ai to store some of our open data collections like Prelinger films, .Gov data, some audio and texts.
You can get an update on decentralized storage at our DWeb Meetup tomorrow (5/13 at 10 AM pacific, 5 PM UTC)
