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The Lifespan of an LP?

How many times can one play a new vinyl lp before the sound noticeably degrades? For the purpose of the exercise, assume one takes decent care of the record and has a properly set up and maintained, good quality deck and stylus. My system has been taking quantum leaps in quality over the last three years and I find myself buying more mint and near-mint vintage  records on Discogs and audiophile remastered records from MoFi etc. Thanks!
heilbron

Showing 3 responses by atmasphere

atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
12,086 posts
 
I'm thinking that the return rate of CDs is probably lower than that of LPs.
Yes- as far as new media is concerned, CDs do just fine.
It's not clear from the line above exactly what the study concluded about CD lifespan, but if they meant that CDs had a lifespan of 25 years, they were way low. If CDs from 1996 and before were failing in large numbers we would be hearing a LOT more about it.
This is entirely reasonable. Of course we are hearing about it but its not been a big deal. I don't recall how they did the aging study but a minor error in that process could throw things by a good number of years. Time will tell; in the meantime the CD seems to be going extinct in favor of more compact storage.
atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
12,086 posts
 
The CD is about to turn 40 next year and so far there have been very few reports of CDs failing.
?? I've had a few of them fail for no good reason. I think everyone has- heck, I've bought a couple brand new and found them to be unplayable.  If something happens to the TOC the disk becomes unplayable. At any rate, you can add my report to those few that you know of.



atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
12,086 posts
 
The Library of Congress did a study of archival audio storage in the 1980s. In this study they concluded that laminated media like tape and CDs had lifespans that were measured in years and a couple of decades, depending on storage. Non-laminated media, like LPs and the stampers that made them (if stored properly) will last decades and well into a century. I have LPs from the early 1950s that play fine- and are now 70 years old!
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