The awful truth about CDs, do they have the same shelve life as LP's ?


The answer is properly not. Recent studies have shown that the chemicals used in their manufacture of CDs have reduced their life expectancy to ten years, not all but many, as per Paul Mcgowans email. The suggestion was given that if you have suspect CD's they should be re-copied. But my question is how do you identify these? I can tell you that I have a great deal of LPs and I can play anyone of these with great success and some are 40 years old. This no doubt would give some audiophiles another good reason to hold onto their belief that LPs are the way to go.
phd
Who says vinyl is perfect either?
It deteriorates over time no matter how well-cared-for. ( pops and cracks) etc.
Sometimes brand new pressings.
Keep your fingers off of CDs and keep them stored properly and they will last a long long time!
Most will Outlast us😎

I had to throw out quite a few Pearl and Nuova Era cds back in the day.

With Pearl it wasn't so bad as the joke was Phillips No Noise process sold the noise to Pearl. 

They seemed to make a concerted effort to find the noisiest most worn 78s to transfer.

But yes the overwhelming majority of cds from that era are just fine.


I had a number of CDs effected by this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_Disc_bronzing

Most had been replaced for free, unfortunately if the label is no longer in business out of luck.  I had about 5 discs that had this issue that I was unable to get replaced.
There is such a thing as CD rot but it's not a widespread problem. A friend bought a bunch of CDs from the Koch label(I believe) that went bad. The company ended up replacing his for free as well as thousands of others. DVDs are actually worse because of the poorer dye that is used.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_Disc_bronzing