Originally posted by sonhouse
The only problem there I see is what do you do with your digital media 20 years from now? I can say for sure my vinyl collection will sound pretty much like it does now.
You think so? Not if you keep playing them every day, they won't. Vinyl does wear. You can keep the wear down to a minimum, but it will still wear.
But what new technology will be replacing the CD's, flash drives, hard drives and so forth? CD's will only last 20 years or so, humidity will get to them eventually. Flash drives and HD's will lose bits also. You going to be ready to re-record all your music on the technology of the month club?
Why not? It's all digital, the masters are (presumably - certainly for anything recorded in the last few decades) available on a computer somewhere, so they're easy to clone. A bit-for-bit copy is a perfect copy of a digital recording. All you then have to do is transfer that to the new digital medium.
Contrast this with an analog medium, where
any copy is going to be lossy. You can't copy an LP to a tape, even to a massively overspecced master tape, without losing something. You can't copy a tape to an LP without losing some data, either. If the original is damaged, it's lost forever, because all copies of it are imperfect. The imperfections may be small, but one day your vinyl is going to be gone. And even then, you'll be able to get a perfect copy of your CDs on the digital medium of the day.
Richard