A record player that rips while it plays? Whoever came up with this one? I need to shake their hand, now. Check out the info below…

….what if you have a stack of old records around that you want to listen to on your iPod? If you ask the RIAA, you’ll be pointed towards an online store where you can pay for your music all over again. If you ask the folks at Denon, they might suggest their new DP-200USB, a turntable with a twist.

The $250 record player does all the dirty work for you. You can, of course, just pop on a record and listen, but the guts of the machine contain an MP3 encoder and will not only detect gaps and separate tracks into individual files, it will query Gracenote and actually add names and ID3 tags to the resulting MP3s. To be clear, the tagging is carried out by included software back on your PC.

The neatest touch, though, is the position of the USB port. It’s on the front, so you can just stick a pen-drive in their and rip. Just press record and it’s all automatic once the music starts. You even get to listen as you copy….

Birthday is 5/28 folks. You know what to do.

More info here: Wired.com Gadget Lab: Denon Record Player Rips as it Plays.