How many will listen to tape and vinyl in the next century?

Tonykay, right about Willy. Six years ago he aligned and calibrated my 682ZX extermely well. Going to send the deck to him this year again to have it in perfect order for the next five-seven years.
As for the next century..well, someone got to replace him. And us.
I do sound optimistic, don't I?

And thats the worry, the shortage of good LPs.

There is still a lot of good original pressings around from 50s, 60s and 70s. Many of them held up remarkably well, but I don't know about 100 years more,  enough of them will probably deteriorate. In a hundred years playing records let alone tapes, if there are any tapes, may become sort of a strange elite, even aristocratic, hobby. Better than nothing.

After 100 years the main problem will be to find high quality original pressings. Most reissues are average sounding and they may not be able to carry the game of analog forward. We need seriously good sounding vinyls in plenty numbers in order to keep the interest going. 

Even today if we had to live off only the reissues a lot of us would lose interest in analog playback IMO

inna OP2,272 posts08-16-2016 7:08pmLet's hope you are right. My immediate concern is that people themselves tend to become sort of digital, unnatural and consisting of bits and pieces.

I completely agree with you Inna. I realized that I started to quantisize myself to a number of bits per instruction my brain generates. I believe I'm very close to Neo or Agent Smith.

Next century?  As in 2116?  If the Zombie Apocalypse hasn't occurred by then most likely some exotic new technology we can not even phantom will have displaced those technologies......

I'll still be listening to cassettes on my Nakamichi cassette decks (RX-505, ZX-9) in 2100, as long as Willy Hermann is still around to service them

This may not be the jesting question you could suppose.  I presently live in Milan Township, OH.  For those of you who don't recognize that name, it's the birthplace of Thomas Edison.  Guess how many 100+ year old Edison cylinders are still played here on the old players?  Not to mention 78s on the Victrolas.  And then there are the hundreds of pilgrims every month who keep the antique shops running strong buying it all.

I submit that analog recordings scribed on cylinders and disks will long outlast magnetic and optical media be they encoded via analog or digital processes. Well into the 22nd century and likely beyond, IMO.  Sound quality is not the primary concern of forecast longevity; the medium itself is simply more physically durable and the recording that survives is the one that will get listened to.  Optical technologies are damaged by UV, magnetic by EM, cloud by UV, EM and RF.  Those are far more prevalent than mechanical friction or shock with respect to damaging artifacts.  Even submersion or mold do not have insurmountable effects on analog cylinder/disk technology.  Just ask the Library of Congress.

FWIW, I also strongly suspect that at least some of us participating in these forums now will see the 200th anniversary of the phonographic recording in 2077.  Such is the nature of progress, no?

No wires is the future. Invisible transducers is the future. No hard mediums is the future.

The odds are better in Vegas than betting on this one. Plus, it's too early in the current century to make such a prediction...oh wait, I get it, this was an invitation for smiling and good natured trolls, cynics and SNL wannabes.

Zero

Also, question is how to preserve master tapes for centuries. They got to think of something not just digitizing everything, though this should be done too.

Let's hope you are right. My immediate concern is that people themselves tend to become sort of digital, unnatural and consisting of bits and pieces. Just take a walk around Manhattan while making yourself 'invisible'.

Please add me to the pool of audio enthusiasts who love the sound of analog: vinyl and tape just sounds better than ANY music that has been polluted by digital. We believe there will ALWAYS be a series of comebacks for analog. It will come and go in waves, as generations oscillate between romantic and expediant. But, word-of-mouth will continue to spread the mystique of more believable sound from analog, as long as humans inhabit this planet. Records and tapes will remain collectable and desirable forever.

Listening to the local classical music FM station with a circa 1975 Marantz 2270 receiver (upon which I am about to perform a complete refurb with new caps and transistors) into a pair of circa 1969 AR 2ax speakers (for which I recapped the crossovers and re-doped the cloth surrounds and replaced with original sourced AR super tweeters).

At this very musical listening moment, I couldn’t be happier.

Reelin and rockin in the next century with Sony pro portable walkman cassette player. No house power, no interconnects, no fuses, no ground. No problem.

Dragon is difficult and expensive to maintain, and it doesn't sound better than some others. I suggest 682ZX or ZX-9. The former is a little warmer, the latter has a little more resolution. I use 682ZX almost every day.

I'll take original BMW M3 from 80s.

70's Chevy is best. No need to look any further.

I am still in 20th century too and will remain there forever. Interesting how we try to bend time, subjectively.

I am still in 20th century

The same, in the least, as this Century.

How many? Take the highest percentage pure copper in speaker cables, consider the remainder percentage, apply a coefficient far less than 1, multiply the result by the worlds population at 2100AD and obtain an overestimate proportional to the coefficient.

Possibly my grandson, he is now 1 and 1/2. Maybe other grandchildren who's grandfathers have a vinyl system that they hear at early age.

Interesting, I believe there are turntables that could be maintained for that length of time, vinyl disks also.  

I make/grind my own coffee, I use a double edge razor/shaving brush, I listen to vinyl....  these are processes toward perfection. ( can you tell I'm an old guy)

won'tcha be listening vinyl in the next century?