HD VINYL FIRST TEST GROOVES CUT
We first wrote about the HD Vinyl concept back in October 2018. The good news is, the first test grooves have reportedly been cut, and Rebeat Innovation says they're on track to be able to deliver HD Vinyl to your turntable by the second-half of 2019.
The Austrian startup has found a way to make vinyl that promises 30 per cent more detail and 30 per cent longer playing time.
A partnership with vinyl production companies, RPA in Connecticut, and Viryl Technologies in Toronto, both have backed the new HD Vinyl format.
Rebeat's patents describe a faster non-toxic way to produce the stamper. Vinyl records are currently made using a copy of a copy of a copy of the original master stamper, but HD Vinyl production requires only the use of the original ceramic stamper.
The challenge has been to find a way to mount the ceramic stamper into the pressing machines.
On track for its original promise to bring the technology to market in 2019, the latest update from Rebeat Innovation says:
We cut the first blank discs and a few simple test structures into ceramic plates on the same machine. The precision and quality of the laser engraving is remarkable, the picture below shows a 12 inch blank disc and one of the first test structures.
The update continues:
At the moment we experiment with a simple sinus curve and after that we will use actual music content for the first time ! We can't tell you how excited we are! Parallel to this we work on a way to test the quality of the grooves.
Rebeat Innovation also says it has successfully secured over USD 6.7 million in funding, ranking it within the top 5 start-up investments in Austria.
The key to HD Vinyl is the Perfect Groove software, which transforms digital audio files into a 3D map.
In order to explore the requirements of mastering engineers for our software we met with Grammy Winner Scott Hull in New York at Masterdisk-Studio. He gave us an inside look into his process and valuable feedback for the software.
Rebeat says that further meetings with audio engineers are planned to fine-tune the software to match the needs of the physical media production.
What seemed like nothing more than a pipe dream to many, is now beginning to look much like the future for the seven-decade-old vinyl record format.
For more information visit Rebeat Innovation.
Marc Rushton
StereoNET’s Founder and Publisher was born in England and raised on British Hi-Fi before moving to Australia. He developed an early love of music and playing bass guitar before discovering the studio and the other side of the mixing desk. After writing for print magazines, Marc saw the future in digital publishing and founded the first version of StereoNET in 1999.
Posted in: Hi-Fi
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