The Lifespan of an LP?

Records will outlive us. Don’t worry about them not lasting unless you don’t put them away after playing and just stack them amongst drinks and cigarettes. I don’t know of any such behavior personally😆

I have played records with scratches on my old Denon DP62L just to hear the music and despite the crackles, they don’t sound bad. I won’t play them on my main rig due to being OCD about wear on my pricier cartridges. 
I have those 78rpm shellac’s that I play on my Victrola and those are from the 1930s and 1940s.  

@fleschler,

Nice 78rpm collection. I think I have roughly 500. Bought some boxes filled with 78s and many were given to me while living in Europe. I am estimating that my normal LP collection is about 8500 and growing. Have a bedroom dedicated to the library. 


Yes, I certainly agree, that with a higher resolution system one is apt to experience musical bliss, despite a few minor scratches. I learned through varied experiences that better tonearms due in fact help with damping scratches. Combined with your high resolution system, and voila, it’s magic. 

@audioquest4life  Thank you very much.  Many of my post 1925 78s of jazz/pop and vocals are especially lifelike and dynamic as they were the original direct to disc records.  Many people (non-audiophiles) tell me that they enjoy listening to records with pops and clicks because it sounds real to them.  Then they visit my listening room and find out differently, that the silent surface LPs are really better.   

I too have a dedicated music storage room in my new home but recent acquisitions have required a Tuff-shed in the backyard for 5,000 LPs and 1,000 78s I haven't heard yet (mostly classical and opera & duplicates).   I keep my 7,000 CDs in steel drawer cabinets made by http://www.can-am.ca/ 18,000 LPs and 6,000 78s are in custom built-in wall cabinets in the storage room.   In my previous home, the listening room was 600 sq.ft. and I had similar cabinets lining the walls 8' high.  Much better separating the listening room and storage room.

Indefinitely for all practical purposes as long as you: (1) keep the record and stylus clean, (2) don't play it with a worn stylus, (3) and keep tracking force low (2 grams or preferably less).  Records I purchased in 1967 and played with a spherical Pickering cartridge in a Garrard record changer still sound pretty good  (which tracked closer to 3 grams a bit too heavy) when played back with today's more sophisticated tip geometries, especially because they ride in a different part of the groove than the old spherical tip.  Records I purchased from 1978 on and played with a Shure V15 types III, IV, or V with elliptical or micro ridge tips sound as good as ever with my latest Jasco stylus or with my latest Shure M97xE.  The effective tracking force with the Shure V15's was 1 gram.  I'm sure that some of my favorites were played many hundreds of times.  Not only that, until around 2000 I played them on a  Techniques SL 1650 record changer in auto that I purchased in 1978 and still use today.  Yes, I stacked 6 records at a time for over 20 years and never had a record degrade.  Now, since the changer function has stopped working, I use the same turntable as a semi-automatic.