The demise of the music CD inevitable?

Perhaps this post of mine just reiterates what I have already stated. Nevertheless, for those with CDs 30 years with no sign (as least as you are able to tell) of ROT, keep in mind year 31 could be very different. Granted, nothing last forever.

Regardless, their demise is inevitable for a number of reasons. (My list is with respect to retaining the source flac file on hard disk and playing back directly from their or USB through an audiphile grade DAC). No particular order.
- Cost
- Physical space
- Greater concern for lack of data preservation
- Current CDs can be ripped to disk, relegating the CD to a "backup"
- Redbook standard is limited to 16 bit PCM

I have hundreds of CDs purchased new from 1986 to 1989 (I know because I made a big list in 1990) and with a rare exception they all play and sound just fine. I don’t know where the data or experiments on this idea that CDs wear out is coming from. Maybe if you leave them in a hot car they will have issues, but otherwise they seem to last just fine.
(The slogan back then: perfect sound forever. Has anyone had many of their old discs fail?)

As for streaming, the problem is far-too-often a track is a non-original strange re-recording because of a copyright issue. Even worse, it’s often not even flagged as being non-original. This is extremely annoying and frustrating if you like popular music from the last several decades.
Tidal, Spotify, Itunes, they all have this problem.

To get these originals onto your own storage, you have to buy a disc and rip it yourself. Until these legal restrictions go away, discs are the only way to go. And I sure don’t want to listen to Youtube or MP3 or other lossy versions with no decent resolution.

And ripping SACDs is basically impossible. And to my ears, SACD is still king, breathtaking and irreplaceable, especially through headphones. [It's a crime the Beatles were never released in SACD, but that's another subject.]

rgs92 wrote: I have hundreds of CDs purchased new from 1986 to 1989 (I know because I made a big list in 1990) and with a rare exception they all play and sound just fine. I don’t know where the data or experiments on this idea that CDs wear out is coming from. Maybe if you leave them in a hot car they will have issues, but otherwise they seem to last just fine.
(The slogan back then: perfect sound forever. Has anyone had many of their old discs fail?)

I have. The failure occurs at the location where the reflective layer gets worn away. If that area is very small like a pinhole - which is typically the case - most players will play right through it because of error correction or not play that portion of a second which is nearly inaudible to detect. As I’ve stated previously, if you inspect the disk by eye you may be able to see worn out reflective areas on the disk. And if you use software that rips with utmost integrity like Exact Audio Copy, even if you don’t necessarily see anything wrong, errors can be reported. When/if an already compromised portion of the reflective layer enlarges, eventually it gets to a point that the player completely skips at that point and a great amount of music (data) is gone, or worse the entire disk doesn’t play.

Note that when I use the term "eventually" and other references to time, it is NOT with the expectation that the CD would last "forever". I certainly realize that everything known to mankind perishes at some point. What I mean to convey here is that the time frames initially purported by the CD manufacturers as to their longevity are WAY off. Also I’ve stated previously, and in keeping with the point/title of this thread, the lack of data preservation that I claim herein is with respect to retaining the same data file digitally but NOT burned to a CD. Other storage mechanisms such as a hard disk are WAY more reliable. If the intention is to burn music to a CD on a casual basis and the expectation is such that you can play the CD a few years down the road that’s fine. On the other hand if one is looking to pass the CDs to their grand kids as some kind of meaningful inheritance that would be a mistake.

Actually, on some of my old Time/Life CDs,  after I ripped them using Jriver to my solid state hard drives, strange things happened. Jriver said some files were unplayable, sometimes not at first, but after they were on my drives for a while. Sometimes I would play one track and another would play.
I thought it was my drives, but copying the file didn't help.
So I guess you are right, as these are 20+ year old CDs.
Thanks for the info.