Name: SONY PS-LX200USB
Category: Home audio/video
Price: ¥28,350
Release date in Japan: April 15, 2008

SONY will tempt platter-spinning old-school audiophiles with its own offering a few weeks after the ER-250 hits shelves, giving its device the SONY touch (and SONY price). The PS-LX200USB is a 3.1-kg LP/EP player that you can add to your component stereo system for vinyl record playback, or connect via USB to a PC for transfer to digital format.

The PS-LX200USB caters to the music fan wanting to move vinyl to digital without losing the warmth of the original format. While the unit includes a tool to reduce analog noise at the digital recording stage, SONY claims that its compression-less recording preserves the "soft sound quality" of vinyl. From there, you'll use the included Sound Forge Audio Studio LE music mastering software (Windows XP/Vista) to edit your recordings and then burn them to CD-R/RW or convert them to ATRAC or MP3 for playback on other devices (such as a Walkman, SONY helpfully suggests).

But SONY is pitching the player not just as a way to turn your recordings digital but as a way to keep enjoying the records themselves. Some key words for the LP-philes out there: phonoequalizer amplifier, fully automatic play, die-cast aluminum alloy turntable, diamond needle MM cartridge, dynamic balance straight-type tone arm, and more.

More info: http://www.sony.jp/CorporateCruise/Press/200803/08-0312/ (Japanese)

Name: EXEMODE ER-250
Category: Home audio/video
Price: Open price (around ¥10,000)
Release date in Japan: March 22, 2008

Vinyl isn't dead; it's just being copied onto solid-state memory by EXEMODE Inc.'s new ER-250 audio system. The Tokyo-based digital device maker's system weighs in at a compact 3.3 kg (plus two 1.28 kg speakers) and only delivers 2W of sound, but promises to neatly straddle the analog and digital worlds. The unit will play LP/EP records and audio CDs, recording the output to MP3 file format on digital memory (USB, SD, miniSD, or MMC). There's an AM/FM tuner as well, for more analog joy.

If you'd rather stick with playback from digital media, the ER-250 accommodates MP3 or WMA audio files in addition to CDs.

Best of all, the ER-250 is expected to cost you only about ¥10,000. As a low-cost way to liberate vinyl - say, turning a parent's classic collection into a format the next generation can enjoy - it's worth checking out. (Sounds to me like the most fun to be had with record albums since the time we kids discovered mom and dad's "Hair" LP. That was better than Saturday morning cartoons.)

More info: http://www.exemode.com/product/er250.html (Japanese)