The Lifespan of an LP?

It's been a while for me, but the first three plays were the best. 

The ARSC Guide to Audio Preservation, 2015 (https://www.clir.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/pub164.pdf) commissioned for and sponsored by the National Recording Preservation Board of the Library of Congress, states: “Vinyl discs are the most stable physical sound recording format developed to date; they can last 100 years in a controlled environment.”  History will probably show >100 years.

The RCA record composition developed (early 1970's) for quadrasonic play with a Shibata stylus (RCA Engineer Magazine, 1976, Issue
02-03, Development of Compound for Quadradiscs, by G.A. Bogantz S.K. Khanna 1976-02-03.pdf (worldradiohistory.com)) at 1.5 gram after 100 plays showed little or no wear. They did show clean-narrow trenching with a Conical stylus at 4.5 grams after 100 plays, but a Shibata or equivalent stylus shape would bridge the trench and playback with full fidelity. 

We should hope that current record compositions follow what RCA developed which is open source info they detailed in their patent - RCA Patent 3,960,790, June 1, 1976, DISC RECORD AND METHOD OF COMPOUNDING DISC RECORD COMPOSITION  1498409551006799538-03960790 (storage.googleapis.com)

That’s what she said, Russ.

@lewm

ROFLOL!

@tablejockey

I doubt someone has played an LP to it’s death to find out

You haven’t seen my 1st press Zeppelin & Sabbath albums. Many took care of their albums in the 60’s & 70’s but we had cheap TT’s with a heavy tracking weight. Line Contact stylus MAY wake them back up. I don’t know. I fell for "Perfect Sound Forever" hype in the 80’s and purged the system. Oh well. i have 4k to play now but I’ll never know about those albums.

@gpgr4blu

Is it because a line contact stylus hits a different point

When I got back into vinyl, (1990’s) I purchased about 3.5K used albums. I got pretty good a knowing Goldmine and knowing what an album sounded. I don’t play anything under VG+. But anyway, I purchased about 5 or 10 from one guy who had taken very good care of them and the looked very good, most NM. I got them home and had very bad surface noise that would not clean out. I had a pretty good setup then. VPI & Dyna 20 XL (I think) but still surface noise. Wish I could remember which they were now that I have a Zyx with LC stylus. BTW, 1st thing I noticed was better bass, I suspect where it was digging deeper. Cartridge before was a Benz Ebony L. No slouch, but not LC.

Life span of a record is longer than your life.