Storing music: digital/analog/backups

[cmr924]

cmr924, sorry to hear of your misfortune.  Backups of anything on computer media is essential -- of course maybe your backups were stolen too.  (A different location for backups is a good idea, preferably off-site.)

Classical on vinyl?  The big question is why.  There are very few new releases of classical music on LP nowadays.

• First, if you are a collector, the reason is to get rare recordings not available on CD.  I have no insight on this topic;  are there really so many of these not-on-CD recordings that it's an issue?  Personally I have no interest in grungy old mono recordings or the like -- just too much good stuff to choose from on CD.
• The second reason is cheap recordings, viz. all those used but pristine $3 LPs    The places to get these are local sources:  flea markets, estate sales, garage sales, and -- to much lessor extent -- 2nd hand emporiums.  However what you can get from these sources is largely the luck of the draw.  Buying LPs from eBay or other record vendors isn't cheap especailly if you factor in shipping costs.  Occassionally large collections come up for sale where the $/record is low, but if you disregard those of no particular interest, the price is effectively much higher.
• The third reason you get sometimes from audiophiles is sound quality.  Give me a break!  Yes is true that some early CD releases, not to mention early CD players, didn't sound great, but this isn't a problem in this day-and-age.  And who ever needed clicks & pops?  (If you buy any of this baloney, do check out Teresa's post;  I don't doubt that her vinyl recommendations are great.)

My conclusion is that classical on LP isn't worth considering unless you're a hardcore collector.

I collect vinyl.  Collecting CDs is a pointless endeavor in my opinion.  I listen to music either digitally or on vinyl.  The CD has no use in my life except in copying to a computer.  After that, it is given away or recycled.  Thanks for the comment!

What I am ideally looking for is recommendations on specific records.  Does anyone have any "MUST HAVE" recommendations?

[DavidW]

I collect vinyl.  Collecting CDs is a pointless endeavor in my opinion.  I listen to music either digitally or on vinyl.  The CD has no use in my life except in copying to a computer.  After that, it is given away or recycled. 

Yeah and we know how that worked out.   Did losing your computer teach you a lesson or not?  The point that you missed before is that the cd serves a practical purpose as a physical backup of your music.

[cmr924]

Yeah and we know how that worked out.   Did losing your computer teach you a lesson or not?  The point that you missed before is that the cd serves a practical purpose as a physical backup of your music.

My computer was stolen.  Not lost.  Yes, it taught me a lesson, to keep music backed up to both external hard drives and DVDs.  Are you suggesting that keeping every CD is more practical than keeping backups of said mp3s on DVDs and stored in a different location?  I surely would hope not.

I don't buy CDs.  The only way I would be able to use them as a backup would be is if they were given to me as gifts.  Please, relax, I don't wish to debate MY choice for music medium in this thread. 

[DavidW]

My computer was stolen.  Not lost.  Yes, it taught me a lesson, to keep music backed up to both external hard drives and DVDs.  Are you suggesting that keeping every CD is more practical than keeping backups of said mp3s on DVDs and stored in a different location?  I surely would hope not.

A lossy compression on an easily scratched dvd-r... yeah, sure that makes sense.  What the cd gives you is (a) lossless, and (b) pretty darned scratch resistant, cds are much more robust when compared to cd-r and dvd-r.  Ok you can do slightly better by using lossless compression.  But we haven't even mentioned the issue of libretti, or the lack thereof if you just burn, rip and sell.  Also there is a slight question of ethics and legality.  If you sell the cd, it's not yours anymore and yet you retain a copy??

[Szykneij]

To change gears slightly, a question to those more knowledgeable of the digital world than me: Am I correct in saying that 100 years from now, the odds that a vinyl recording will survive in playable condition are greater than those of any other recorded medium currently in use? 

[Fëanor]

To change gears slightly, a question to those more knowledgeable of the digital world than me: Am I correct in saying that 100 years from now, the odds that a vinyl recording will survive in playable condition are greater than those of any other recorded medium currently in use? 

Music stored in digital form stands the best chance if only because it can be copied or transfered perfectly from one physical instance to another.  As for CDs specifically,  despite there is concern about delamination of CDs, so far there is no evidence that reasonably carefully stored CDs deteriorate.  Of course the oldest are only about 25 years old, a long way from 100.  I have CDs of my own from 1985 that are in mint condition;  unlike LPs, they don't ware out simply by being playing.

Unlike our original poster, I do keep my CDs after ripping to digital format so I have them for backup, but I also back up to a separate hard drive.  Personally I don't rip to a lossy format such as MP3 -- in that case I would have an immediate loss of quality, never mind waiting 100 years    Given the low cost of hard disk storage, my opinion is it's foolish not to store to a lossless format such as FLAC or ALAC.  In fact bit-perfect WAV files can be recreated from them, so there is no real compelling reason to save in the latter format.