Hey Phil, I think your right it sort of does have a fingerprint doesn't it. You figure the needle is making contact and probably bounding around in the groove.
It just occurred to me that if it was using laser technology it must depend on reflection off the inside of the groove. the returning laser light would have to be picked up and converted to an electrical pulse, which fundamentally is what an analog signal is.
The first thing I picked up was "Totally Analog", so that's the only way I could think of that allow that kind'of claim. The conversion has to be based (to some extent)on some algorithm like elapsed time of reflection = distance converted to an electrical or Analog pulse.
I am not an Electrical Engineer by profession, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn one time.
All this amounts to "pleasant but dull", which is how I feel about the results I have seen from digital and/or DAC's (Digital to Analog Converter) themselves.
Jim
p.s.
Sorry the nerd in me came out there.