CD degradation.....

[fireglo67]

Well, they did warn us when CD's were invented that they have a more limited lifespan than the vinyl they replaced, and I've just experienced this first hand.

I decided to dig out an old Paul Weller CD album (Wildwood) that I hadn't played for a while.
I put it in the player and the disc wasn't recognised. I took it back out thinking there may some grease or something on the CD and I noticed that large amounts of the silver on the CD had turned yellow.
I've had this CD from new (Bought in the early 90's). It's always been kept in it's case and in a regular home enviroment, and I always take care and look after my CD's, so it's not down to any neglect on my part.
I would guess that the CD has just come to the end of it's life. Luckily, the Cd is still available to buy, so i can get a replacement, but I do now worry about a lot of the rare CD's that I have.
I suppose I could save all my CD's onto my computer hard drive, but that's going to compress the sound, so they won't sound as good as the originals.
Bummer!

[wim]

I have that same CD and it still plays fine??
I've got CD's from the end of the eighties that still play fine, my first ever CD was a Style Council one btw

[Tarrbot]

CDs were only meant to last between 15-20 years, IIRC.

I have my first CD from 1986 that looks like it was drug across a parking lot and the last time I tried it, it played fine.

However, I haven't played that CD in at least a couple of years since all of my CDs have been ripped to mp3.

If you want to understand real oddness, the expected lifespan on a CD-R is between 2-5 years.

I'm not sure that DVD-R is much better than that nor am I sure that an authored and pressed DVD is much better than the 15-20 that a CD is supposed to last.

DVD is much more sensitive than CD due to the higher data density on the discs (meaning there are more tiny grooves in the vinyl record on a DVD than there are on a CD.)

[electrofaro]

Quite annoying to have a CD go bad, Rob!

My oldest CD is an original US 1985 pressing of R.E.M.'s "Fables of the Reconstruction" (this pressing has no annoying barcode on the back inlay like the later 1987 pressings) and it's still as good as it used to be.

However, I've had a Bon Jovi CD (I admit I bought it myself ) go bad within a year with NO visual clues - no scratches, no discolourings - no player wanted to play it anymore!

I've got all my CDs ripped into VBR 192 kb/s MP3s which is okay for regular listening - I do know some little sounds which feature on the CD version are lost on the MP3s. However, I'm glad to be able to drag my complete CD collection around with me - even though I barely listen to 90% of it due to the fact there's just too much!

[cjj]

You can, of course, transfer your CDs to a hard disk in a non-compressed format such as WAV so you won't lose anything. This does take more disk space however. But, with terabyte (1000 Gigabyte) drives available these days for around $100, you can easily put more than 1200 CDs on a drive.

Of course, hard drives are also prone to failure, so you might want to buy a couple of them for backups. I'm not sure that the lifespan of the magnetic data on a hard drive is these days. Back when the density was much lower, it was pretty much infinite barring physical damage or high magnetic fields. But with the ultra high density of current disks, I'm not so sure...

[Tarrbot]

Oddly, the longest lasting media currently is analog tape that supposed to last between 30 and 100 years...

[jingle_jangle]

My nearly 60 year old vinyl Sinatra pressings are doing fine.

I think the CD degradation issue is more an environmental issue than anything else.

About 10% of my CDs, some of which date back to '83, experienced terminal degradation after less than a year on the coast of Brasil. In these cases, there was no discoloration, but rather a complete dissolution of the aluminum reflective layer due to corrosion. Holding one of these up to the light revealed actual holes in the aluminum layer. Some of these were unscratched and undamaged in any way, so apparently air could attack the layer somehow, perhaps through a pore in the resin.

A lossless format is a must for archiving of sound files...mp3 just doesn't cut it, and mp3s through a so-called FM adapter can be really bad. When I play CDs through my car's 9-speaker, 240W Harmon-Kardon factory system, the sound quality is excellent--even on CDs that I burn myself. When I play mp3s through an RF "adapter", the quality is dreadful. Waste of money...

CDs have proven to be the shortest-lived of any music storage/playback format (with the possible exception of wax cylinders...), having lasted something like 20 years before being replaced by entirely digital methods. LPs live on and prosper.

[BAD RONBO, KiLLeR DWaRfS]

some of my favorite music is on vinyl, and i don't mind the warm sound of "bacon and eggs" mixed in with the great tone of records conpared to cd's. especially when the vinyl lp is not or never will be available on cd !

[cjj]

We've got some old, thick , what we used to call "slate" records for the old hand cranked, wind-up Victrola that are still just fine after nearly 100 years...

[deaconblues]

I am DONE with disc storage. I've put up with wayyyy too many headaches due to CDs and hard drives.

An IPod Touch with flash memory through an aux jack in my car's stereo = perfect.

[cjj]

Just be aware that data stored in flash memory can be lost in as little as 10 years...

[Ric-O-Buc]

We've got some old, thick , what we used to call "slate" records for the old hand cranked, wind-up Victrola that are still just fine after nearly 100 years...

I have a few of those Edison discs that are that old. I believe they are made of lacquer.

CD is a very robust storage medium, but like analog tapes, they are affected by sunlight and temperature. The plastic protective layer on the outside is what goes if they are stored improperly.

[longhouse]

However, I've had a Bon Jovi CD (I admit I bought it myself ) go bad within a year with NO visual clues - no scratches, no discolourings - no player wanted to play it anymore!

Call it divine intervention, my friend.

I've worn out a few copies of Starfish by the Church, but I think 99% of my commercially-produced CDs are still functioning fine. Many of my CDRs have failed (or developed bizarre digital artifacts) however.

As a child, we had a huge collection of vinyl records and a big percentage of them were brought back from Europe by my father (during his stint as a sailor). The euro-records were always nearly twice as thick as American vinyl.

It was Bart Simpson who said, "Digital audio tape, my butt! When I was a kid we had compact discs and I recall no one complaining."

[johnallg]

Just be aware that data stored in flash memory can be lost in as little as 10 years...

All that has to happen is for the FET gates to discharge enough and the bit flips. Enough bits flip and error correction cannot compensate.

[gibsonlp]

You can, of course, transfer your CDs to a hard disk in a non-compressed format such as WAV so you won't lose anything. This does take more disk space however. But, with terabyte (1000 Gigabyte) drives available these days for around $100, you can easily put more than 1200 CDs on a drive.

Of course, hard drives are also prone to failure, so you might want to buy a couple of them for backups. I'm not sure that the lifespan of the magnetic data on a hard drive is these days. Back when the density was much lower, it was pretty much infinite barring physical damage or high magnetic fields. But with the ultra high density of current disks, I'm not so sure...

If you leave a hard drive offlilne for a few years (about 8 years or so) you'll start it up to see it has been completely wiped off.
The magnetically stored data is simply being slowly wiped off by earth's magnetic core, when the drive is operating this is not a problem as it automatically fixes and re-writes "weak" magnetic parts of the data, but when the drive is offline - it will be gone eventually.