Why not use a non-contact stylus on a turntable?

Could it be the "why not?" of no contact is, from a noise perspective, that once you digitize, the pops and ticks can be removed with software. It can, and is, being done now with contact styli, an ADC and the same software that would be necessary with no contact. So not much  advantage noise-wise.

millercarbon have you checked out the bearing design of the more expensive Clearaudio turntables? 
Vinyl is the best material we know of for trench warfare but it is far from perfect. Basically it just wears out after 100 playings. That suits the bean counters just fine. In many respects CDs are even more fragile. Try cleaning one with brake cleaning fluid. When one starts skipping it is far more annoying than a stuck record. I is much easier to read the info on an album cover than on that little flap of paper designed to get torn when you pull it out of the crappy plastic case that cracks when you look at it. Most importantly there is no humanity in it. CDs are for robots. They can insert them right into their mouths. Don't even need ear buds. The belief ( marketing ) back in 1981 was that records would be gone in 10 years. I will bet anyone here dumb enough to bet someone who does not gamble that new records will be sold long after CDs are gone. Music to last a lifetime! My backside. At least you could hang yourself with Cassettes. 

This is a rather amusing thread - dear OP are the following not attempts to improve the transducer arts?

1. Laser turntable?
2. MC cartridges - with various materials in the body and stylus - including countless profiles;
2. Moving Iron cartridges  (variables as above)
3. Coming Magnet Cartridges - (same variables again)
4. Strain Gauge Cartidges
5. Optical cartridges
6. Condenser cartridges

The problem is one of the following:

1. Someone has already considered it - believe it or not the likes of John Carr at Lyra; Van Den Hul... are - believe it or not - pretty bloody intelligent too.
2. It takes megabucks and mega minds to do it (look at the DS optical cartridges - that are a spin off for a tech company that happens to have a vinyl nut working there)
3. the methods you suggest are likely to require digitisation somewhere along the line - it defeats the purpose of being analogue (my only reason for not getting a TACT amp that 'room corrects')

parrotbee

Good list -- thank you. I never claimed there have been no attempts at progression.

Yes, it will take dogged determination and some significant capital to improve/implement other transducers.

I agree -- must be linear translation with no AD conversion in the process.

But aren't we talking about the survival of vinyl technology in playback?

We are way into the law of diminishing returns on the traditional stylus. Will there be a future in vinyl unless we try a 'new mousetrap'?

Kind regards,

Greg

No. We're not talking about "survival".  The vinyl medium has a life of its own for many, many reasons, not all of them rational but most of them compelling to those of us who pursue the art, and so far sustaining.  Meantime, it seemed to me that you were asking for a way of reading the analog information encoded in a groove and transducing that mechanical information to an audio signal, without actually contacting the groove.  None of the advances in the art cited by Parotbee, except the laser turntable of which there is only one, have that goal in mind.  Nor did they get us anywhere nearer to it.  How do you get around the fact that nearly zero LPs are perfectly centered (this will throw off any noncontact reading device) and that all LPs will have some dirt particles or dust in the grooves?  These are problems that the developers of the ELP laser turntable have had to deal with.

But now I am not sure what you think we should want. (I won't say that you want it; you seem to be here to gloat.)  Most of us prefer analog to digital, but some use both media.  You can be forgiven for preferring digital, but beyond trolling, why are you here?  (As you can tell, I think there is no reason beyond trolling.)