T Bone Burnett, a music producer who rose to prominence as the guitarist in Bob Dylan’s band, unveiled what he describes as a new breakthrough in analogue recording technology called Ionic Originals. The new disc format merges aspects of vinyl and CD to create what Burnett describes as “the pinnacle of recorded sound.”
The technology itself involves lacquer painted onto an aluminum disc, with a spiral etched onto the whole thing that contains a piece of music. As pointed out by Loudwire, traditional vinyl records are made out of polyvinyl chloride (a plastic containing no metal), while standard CDs utilize polycarbonate plastic and a metal component, like aluminum. Ionic Originals are then more similar to the metal “stampers,” which function like masters and are used to press records so that they can be sold commercially.
