The present invention relates to an appliance for reading from and/or writing to optical recording media 1 having a first laser diode LD1 for producing a first scanning beam AS1 at a first wavelength .lamda..sub.1 and having a second laser diode LD2 for producing a second scanning beam AS2 at a second wavelength .lamda..sub.2, with the scanning beams AS1, AS2 running along a common optical axis 9, scanning an information layer 6 on the recording medium 1 and falling on a single photodetector 8 in order to produce an information signal IS, with a beam combination element being arranged at one point on the optical axis 9. According to the invention, the beam combination element is a diffraction grating 12.