There is software which will generate the 3D model required from a sound file. There have been records 3D printed [1], but the quality is much, much worse than

There is software which will generate the 3D model required from a sound file. There have been records 3D printed [1], but the quality is much, much worse than an actual record. [1]: http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/129971-vinyl-records-are-far-from-dead-now-you-can-3d-print-your-own http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/129971-vinyl-records-are-far... The stylus size on an LP is something like 2.5 thousandths of an inch, or about 63.5 um. The printer used in the link above (an Objet500 Connex) has a minimum layer thickness of 16 um. The article talks about 600 DPI, which may be a horizontal resolution? That works out at around 42 um. The Objet website just gives a minimum resolution of 16 um. Either way, when you look on the scale of the needle your groove is going to have a lot of hysteresis - essentially appearing very blocky. The high frequency sound components are going to be lost completely. There will obviously be improvements on resolution. The problem is that to build something which can accurately make records with high frequency sounds (perhaps 15kHz), you need to build it to very high tolerances. It's very hard to make those sort of tolerances cheap. Some low cost 3D printers have been made which use UV light to cure epoxy resin layer by layer. The 2D resolution of those technologies is dependent on the resolution of the UV projector rather than the mechanical tolerances of the rails and extruder, so there's a lot more potential for high resolution prints there. The Z direction is still dependent on mechanical movement though.