European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - May 8, 1987, Darmstadt, Hesse Consumer watch it s cd for super sound by Mary Neth consumer editors found reproduced pure with no hisses no misses that s cd. Sound thai does t crackle but can pop your speakers or bring neighbors screaming o the front door if you Aren t careful. "11 you Lorn up the volume on a piano concerto the people on the other Side of the wait Are going to Leel As though they have a grand piano silting in heir living says Mark Daniel Holmes assistant manager at the cafes sound Center in Frankfurt. The sound is so pure he explains that people tend to Lei it pour out full Force without realizing what they Are Dong. Compact disc or laser sound says Holmos uses digital recording. The sound Waves am not converted into tracks inscribed on a record Groove instead they Are electronically sampled and transformed Inlo numbers binary digits or bits that a computer can read As lung As tha digits Don t get lost or jumbled the original sound can be reconstructed flawlessly. Fortunately you Don t have to know the inside Story of How cd Are made to gel Inlo this hot new sound yield you also Don t have to own a Bank. Portable co players can to purchased for As Little As 1125." says Holmes. Prices Al cafes for Lull Cue models with Remote control Range from $2?5 to $900. It is also possible of Purchase cd Walkman and car audio Quality is generally uniform so deciding on which. Cd player to buy should depend a great Deal on the features you feel Are important and How convenient the player is to operate. Chock out As Many models As possible and let the Salesman explain the different features. The cd average $11.95, making them More expensive than Ordinary record albums which sell for $6.50. But they Don t Wear out. Nothing harder than a Light beam touches the Groove As the cd is played explains Holmes Wilh any care they la last a Uke phonograph records cd Are inscribed with a Long spiral Groove. That is Prelly much where the similarity c is. The cd system uses a Low powered laser Miner than a Diamond stylus to pick up the sound. The laser beam follows the Groove focusing on tiny pits. An aluminium Mirror then bounces the Light to an optical sensor which reads the pits a a string of zeroes and ones. A microprocessor to the player converts the digital signals Back to analog signals and routes the sound to the amplifier and speakers. The digits or bits Are recorded on the disc which starts out As Clear molten plastic. It is folded Inlo a Circle and impressed on one Side with a line spiral of tiny pits that represent the digits. That Side is then coated with & shiny aluminium film and a thin layer of plastic. The word laser is an acronym for Light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation. Ordinary Light is made of rays of dry Ferenal lengths going in All directions. Laser Light is made of Waves o one single length. Laser Light can focus Down to one 10-Lhousandlh o Normal Light and is capable of carrying enormous amounts of information. In the player the beam is emitted from a helium Neon laser tube. A single laser beam passes through a grating that Breaks it into several separate beams three of them pass through a prism and Aie reflected onto a device that converts the optical beam to a frequency modulated signal that contains sound information the same information that was coded on the disc when it was made. The one disadvantage with a cd player is that you cannot use it to record. Holmes says however that he believes cd will make phonograph records obsolete in the years to come. Many now buy cd albums and use them As masters for a svelte tapes. The advances in recording technology thai Are Down the Road Are almost unbelievable a says. Right now cd sales Al cafes have doubled since last year. The fastest growth area is classical Wilh jazz proving extremely popular says Holmes. We Are ordering More titles All the for a movie Buff laser films can t be beat a Lan Brown is a super fan of what i commonly referred to As cd sound. Hedoesit however own a single am Little loin about getting into compact he said because i have so Many i i and stereo recordings about 3.500 Back in the sales and a real Good system for them " whal Brown does have is 1,t37 laser disc movies. To Mel at the cafes audio video shop in Frankfurt whore Brown a printout of his film Coil Clion clutched in one hand was checking out the latest Slock i m a Rea movie Buff. I have been for years and he invited us to his Home to see his setup. The dim collection neatly filed in an attractive Bookcase covers one Wall of the living room of the apartment in the Frankfurt suburb of Redelheim. Brown an employee of lha army continuing education system has counting his military service lived in Europe four times. He said that prices Lor audio and video equipment through on base shops Are much belter than in the United Stales he invited us to sit Down in front of the screen but before showing a film explained a title about his setup. Brown said he did t want duplications of equipment speakers in the to sol speakers in the Diliso he asked a Lech rep to put loge her a plan for components this Way you can pick and choose and get whatever you want the Oest Monitor the Best speakers i started out ill a Pioneer Monitor with an 28-Inch he got in. He said on a Christmas special Lor $598 next came his player a front loading Pioneer old 700 bought on Sale Lor around 1500, the newer 900 series of machines will play All three sizes of discs the Small cd and the eight-and-12-Mch laser discs. Mine will Only play the larger 12-Inch discs generally for his two speakers Aie technique and Cost $600. His amplifier tape drive turntable and equalizer Are part of that system. The equalizer he said is not really necessary bul a lot of people feel they have to have one. It lakes Oul the highs and lows in your basically for the laser discs i have the ld-700 player and am running the sound through the technique speakers and the visual portion Over the Monitor Brownf up the switch and the room fills with sound wonderful a ear unbelievable sound it is a demons Lvalion disc. We hear input laser recording torn a laser recording itself. Theoretically proclaims i in speaker on the demonstration disc one laser beam could carry All Telephone Calls and radio and television programs in the United slates at one time. After the speaker s explanation of the technical wonders of Short laser Light Brown fills us in on what this Means when it comes to practical application. You can Lieze Frame on video tape bul if you do so for any length of time i will literally Lall apart. Highl now. This thing is spinning Al 18 rpm. But nothing is touching. No damage is possible. We have stopped a laser film at a particular Frame taken the Lime to have dinner then come Back a couple of hours later and Laken up where we left Oil. U you did this to a Lape in would be discs survive under other circumstances too that would be deadly to tapes. If you put a tape on top of a transformer it will be Blank in a Mailer of hours the transformer just drains the magnetic signal. Nothing electro magnetic will Hurt the laser disc. You can use the freeze Frame capability to Check out a single action in slow motion he Conilues. Like of example that Lamous punch in the Muhammad ale Sonny Lisbon rematch of 19g5. You Alsey can make use of the two stereo sound tracks to hear a film in its original language and then switch Over to the English translation a great Way to learn a foreign language or you can listen to the Alan Brown returns a 12-Inch later title to its cover. Offensive and defensive coaches telling their sides of a football play. A tape he explains does t have the ability to take All this information Brown also has a to tuner never hooked up. We just Aren t to fans he said. He goes along Wilh those who say thai laser discs will be the Home entertainment of the future he agrees with the cd demonstration spokesman to says. Today to has become the land of the git Ahon comedy and mile else. Bul the laser disc player gives you the Chance to see what you wan to see when you want to see it Rigel in your own Safly Neth Page 16 the stars and stripes Friday May a 1987
