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Old technologies never die, they just upgrade.
In 1983, a young electrical engineer named Robert Stoddard set out to build the ne plus ultra of turntables. Instead of using a conventional needle, his player would read a record's pressed grooves with lasers, producing master-tape-quality playback without the slightest wear on the vinyl. The timing for such an invention, however, was less than auspicious. The compact disc player debuted that very same year, enticing Americans into a brave new world of crisp, clean digital sound. Still, Stoddard formed a company and spent seven years and $20 million to create a working prototype of his laser turntable, which he gamely showed to Japan's major audio manufacturers. Of course, he might as well have pitched a new kind of horse-drawn buggy; CDs had the market sewn up by that point. But Stoddard pressed on until he convinced a small firm called ELP to take a risk on his ingenious, nouveau-retro machine.
ELP's first Laser Turntable finally hit the market in 1997, and they've been steadily moving them ever since. But don't look for the current models at Best Buy....