Laser Turntables; Opinions Please

There are alot of draw backs on the ELP laser turntable, first they cost quite a bit of money, two the laser goes out quite often because the LED they use has a short life to it, three if the LED goes out you have to send it all the way back to Japan I think it was because only they can do the repair because the LED is made especially for them. And most important one is that it doesn't sound as good as some table in the $2000 range.

Nothing special and a lot of kinks it seems to me.

I thought there was a fairly recent review on this in TAS? Maybe I'm wrong, perhaps it was Stereophile. Whichever, I don't think the review was very complimentary, your records need to be fantastically clean or you get tons of surface noise. In fact I think if you buy one it comes with a VPI cleaning machine.

I 'think' Stereophile may review this in the future.
In the recommended components TT section,in the area of TT products to keep any eye on or to having a coming review it is mentioned (I think) I dont have that issue anymore to double check though.Am I right or wrong?

Stereo Times had a review:

http://www.stereotimes.com/turn030300.shtm

They said it was fantastic. However, they did say that pops and clicks are much more pronounced.

But check out: http://www.elpj.com/frameset.html

In their website, they say it is less noisy. They also have three models where they used to only have one.

According to the article, ELP will demo the tt in your home for a fee of $500.00. If you decide to buy, the fee is credited to the purchase price.

I encourage you to buy the ELP, and then tell me what you think!:)

The only one I remember was also about twenty years ago and cost $10,000 (in 1982 dollars). It was geared towards collectors, not audiophiles. It allowed a collector to play that valuable rare LP with no wear.

I haven't heard reference to one of these in almost twenty years. Finial(?)

I do recall one review in _Hi-Fi_News_and_Record_Review_ on an early laser turntable that wasn't that positive. The laser turntable was far noisier--the records needed to be cleaner than clean--and even when all was going well, the laser turntable sounded only as good as a regular turntable at a fraction of the price. (A pretty small fraction, too, if I recall right). I don't know about laser turnables since that time, though.

Then, one obvious disadvantage with laser turntables is that you can't play with different cartridges, power supplies, etc, etc, etc. (Maybe this isn't a disadvantage, after all....)

I actually have no idea, nor do I know of anyone who does. I have read that the ELP is referred to as "infamous" but I don't really know what they mean when they say that.