Rhea Jeong's Void LP player concept cheats at gravity

Designer Rhea Jeong's Void LP player seems devoid of reality, but it was inspired by the very real and very cute "Vinyl Killer," a little VW Bus that can propel itself around a record and play the tunes with its tinny speaker, naturally wearing out the precious LP in the process. The Void LP takes the concept of a self-sufficient speaker, amp and needle (the red ball), and then tosses them all into the air with a magnetic saucer. We're sure it sounds terrible, and it seems a little fantastical, but one thing's for certain: we want.

[Via The Rock and Roll Star]

Gallery: Rhea Jeong's Void LP player concept cheats at gravity

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[kevin @ Jun 27th 2009 6:30PM]

Me also want.

[LondonConsultant @ Jun 28th 2009 8:05AM]

Well, Steorn should be selling one of these soon...

[qwack @ Jun 27th 2009 6:30PM]

Where's the VW bus eh?

[GingerFox @ Jun 27th 2009 6:31PM]

thats pretty epic tbh, i wouldn't expect the sound to be great just looks good

[google55555 @ Jun 27th 2009 6:35PM]

cool!

[loopyoyo @ Jun 27th 2009 6:42PM]

that red ball is not gonna stay up there

[Jon Doe. @ Jun 28th 2009 2:46AM]

That's what she said....wait...what.

[Rekit @ Jun 27th 2009 6:43PM]

wtf!!

[bolezhinkov @ Jun 27th 2009 6:47PM]

+1

[treymps2006 @ Jun 27th 2009 7:50PM]

+2

[Melon @ Jun 27th 2009 6:52PM]

Are there aliens inside it?

[Foamysking @ Jun 27th 2009 6:53PM]

if this actually works i would so buy it and listen to all my family's stash from the 50-70's

[RLBurkes @ Jun 27th 2009 6:53PM]

I clicked the link to the VW Killer which took me to Engadget Chinese translated via google, and it is pretty funny to read the posts and comments after the poor translation. DO IT NOW, and rejoice.

[Lord Nibbler @ Jun 27th 2009 7:31PM]

Agreed. That was a good chuckle.

[Matthew C @ Jun 27th 2009 7:41PM]

hehehe


I decided to go to engadget chinese home, and the second article read: "is not recomended to pull into the drive to", talking about those new 16 gig mini flash drives.

google translate has some work to do.

[telepheedian @ Jun 27th 2009 8:08PM]

There are THREE responses

[Tony @ Jun 27th 2009 11:42PM]

Thats why he said read the posts (not just the POST)

[deanb @ Jun 28th 2009 4:21AM]

"Grilled white toast said coke too long! iPhone 3GS the same!"

Gotta love Engrish, especially when it's Google Translate Engrish.

[NeoJew @ Jun 27th 2009 6:54PM]

Why are we still using needles? Can't they do something with a laser?

[nick @ Jun 27th 2009 6:59PM]

We did. It was called the Compact Disc.

[JohnWesleyHarding @ Jun 27th 2009 7:02PM]

They have the technology with lasers, however it is absurdly expensive at this point. Along with that, the laser cannot be so close (as the needle/amp/speaker red ball is) and therefore the design would need to be completely different.

[NeoJew @ Jun 27th 2009 7:06PM]

I was thinking it would be cool to have the laser in the base and get rid of the red ball all together.

[letstakeawalk @ Jun 27th 2009 7:58PM]

BEHOLD! The Laser Turntable:

http://www.elpj.com/about/index.html

I'm pretty sure this is what the US Library of Congress and the National Library of Canada use.

[Jmoney according to george @ Jun 27th 2009 9:16PM]

I saw this on digg this morning. It is purely conceptual; this could never work.

[Devolve @ Jun 27th 2009 6:58PM]

Oh god i can see that red ball getting off balance and scratching my precious 180g vinyl. Neat concept though.

[JohnWesleyHarding @ Jun 27th 2009 7:45PM]

Although an amazing concept, I have the same exact fears of something like that scratching my records. Even more so, I feel the point of 180g vinyl is lost on the fact that the red ball acts as the speaker.

[ajoan0077 @ Jun 29th 2009 7:07PM]

Forget vinyl and wax....shellac would be perfect for this!

unless the magnet fails, then your screwed.

[aznofazns @ Jun 27th 2009 7:10PM]

Probably sounds about as good as a cell phone speaker, but such a cool idea!

[Lonin @ Jun 27th 2009 7:28PM]

Why not throw a bluetooth chip into the ball instead of a speaker? Then you could use whatever speakers you wanted.

[Stephen @ Jun 27th 2009 7:40PM]

That's actually a really good idea... I KNOW that we can fit a Bluetooth chip, and a battery in there if we can fit it inside all the tiny headsets.

[Jon Dickson @ Jun 27th 2009 8:09PM]

anyone thought of how awesome this would be if the speaker was an induction charged bluetooth audio transceiver instead? way better sound quality, and also just plain awesome

[Jon Dickson @ Jun 27th 2009 8:10PM]

sweet

[chazz @ Jun 27th 2009 8:54PM]

This Engadget China post is better:

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fchinese.engadget.com%2F2009%2F06%2F27%2Fwhite-iphone-3gs-reportedly-overheats-turns-a-browner-shade-of%2F

[bimmerfreak0 @ Jun 27th 2009 10:45PM]

hmm interesting

[granny down east @ Jun 27th 2009 10:46PM]

Wow! Life imitates art. I believe I saw this concept in a 1930's film. Was it "The Shape of Things to Come," or an H. G. Wells film? Anybody?

[Tony @ Jun 28th 2009 1:01AM]

so this is cool and all... but who designs this stuff? people without jobs? i dont understand the "business" of making art concept designs like this. and yeah, i know, its sort of a starting point for others to push forward and make into a real product, but is this a job someone would have? Do they just do this stuff for fun in their free time? i just dont see how there could be any money in a job like that

[Sam @ Jun 28th 2009 12:00AM]

Weird.

[patrickvoltaggio @ Jun 28th 2009 12:58AM]

I think you've all been duped.

[iknowaeiou @ Jun 28th 2009 2:26AM]

this is gonna take my Conway Twitty 45's to a whole new level.

[kobioshi @ Jun 28th 2009 3:45AM]

Given the fact we are talking about magnets, the sound could be decent... What would be really killer is if the dude somehow made the thing wireless transmit the audio to a head unit... bluetooth or something.

[graywolf790 @ Jun 28th 2009 8:52AM]

Want!! Not bored enough yet!!! My grandparent's LPs would finally interest me!

[jonas @ Jun 28th 2009 11:57AM]

Damm that's so dope!!!

I wonder what it costs...

[johnisdead @ Jun 28th 2009 12:34PM]

Oh great, let's levitate my ancient Beatles records and balance a ball on top of them. Should turn out fine!

[JohnTech @ Jun 28th 2009 11:02PM]

if it simply levitates a surface like that, i don't care if it plays music or does ANYTHING practical at all. I will buy it. The coolest magnetic levitation device I've seen is a floating globe. I need something that goes to another level like this.

[zouden @ Jun 28th 2009 11:08PM]

Um, what keeps it spinning? Methinks the designer has a poor grasp of physics.

[enz1ey @ Jun 28th 2009 11:55PM]

the magnet most likely spins around inside the base