THE DAY THE MUSIC DIED.

[radiorob2.0]

A respected audio engineer/restorer told me electronic transcription is the only medium with an infinite lifespan.  Also, the reproduction device has a timeless design that can be built anywhere http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_Golden_Record. 

The best advice is keep you archive materials a half step ahead of technology and for the love of goodness create a backup!. 

[TheBigA]

The funny part is that while CD-Rs have a limited life, the CDs sold by record labels are don't.  It's a different process, and their information will be preserved as long as the disc itself remains intact.  For some reason, record labels aren't using this as a selling point to the download generation.  Perhaps they're concerned about telling them their products are indestructable.  Most companies prefer to sell products that need replacement.  But professional CDs won't.

I've spoken with professional archive companies, and they tell me that converting your audio to data could help them last longer.  I haven't tried that yet, so if anyone's tried, let us know.

[K6JHU]

Once you have converted the audio to data then it will survive mostly becuase of the myriad ways of profilerating the data and the ease with which it can be transferred. Muct faster transfernig digitally than transferring analog audio (e.g duplicating to tape). Look at the methods there are for storing digital data: CD, Flash Drive, Hard Drive, Hard Disk, DAT, etc (and I think that I have barely scratched the surfafce). And you can keep multiple copies as well.

[FRR]

I gotta be honest folks, in a hundred yrs, I'm not going to care.

[flytrap]

When I was a kid I had one of those plastic kiddie record players that had the cartridge go out.  So I got a pin from my mothers sewing box and stuck it through a styrophone cup and taped it to the tone arm.  Wasn't really that loud and it wasn't that good on the records, but all I played on it was some old scratchy kids records.  thousands of years from now, archeologists will dig up some old records somewhere and will look at it and notice the grooves and realize that there is sound on them.  It won't take long before they realize that if they stick a needle in there that they may hear something.  If they dig up a CD, DVD or flash drive they are going to be scratching their heads trying to figure out how to play it.

[quadraphonic]

All that information about how to play digital data CDs will be included in the Person Owner's Manual in about a thousand years, flytrap. Probably some kind of Plug-n-Play fingertip-size laser scanable drive thing.