Back to the analogue (digital) roots (or: You may call me paranoid, but ...)?

Dear all,

watching / listening to all those re-issues and anniversary editions appearing on CD, which - apart from mostly being a rip-off - actually do change the “sound of the music”!

Listen for example to “Obladi-Oblada” by the Beatles on Vinyl, the first (numbered) CD-Edition and the latest Super-Duper-High-Fly Deluxe Edition. The bass is changed from a decent try of Reggae to an oompah oompah sound from the Oktoberfest. With “in-ears” this probably sounds amazing, but when listening to it the “old-fasioned way” with a fat amp and real speakers, I find it annoying … Same is true for the latest “Let it be” deluxe bla bla … the bass rumbles like Muhammed Ali back in 1974 (for the younger among us: look up “Rumble in the Jungle”, fight and song). … and the voices lost all their edge and sound soft-washed …

So we spend a (moderate) fortune to listen to good music only to get mass market sound? I do not mind a hiss as long as it stems from the origal recording (I do mind if it originates in my sound system!) and I do hate the cracks on my vinyls, but remembering which party caused them I smile and enjoy!

ok - I ripped all my CDs, so why should I care?

and here comes the paranoid part:

Seeing all this “good old” AAD transfers being replaced by remastered, remixed, re-made, re-modeled (oops, that’s Roxy Music) versions I decided to re-rip my most treasured CDs (mostly vinyl (master?) tapes transferred AAD to CD) to flac replacing my alac versions.

And here it became interesting: some of the old CDs were almost impossible to rip (ripping speed with XLD below 0,1 compared to 3 to 8 regular), other took a very long time (speed between 1 and 2). Having a closer look some CDs showed dicolorations, other looked quite normal. So it seems that CDs do deteriorate, not after 10 years as prophesied, but after 30 to 40 years. I am pretty sure that you would not hear (yet) it on a good CD-Player, but I find this alarming!

Has anybody made a similar experience?

best regards

stephan.

Hi @Stephan_Herlitzius and welcome to the Roon forums. Interesting first post. In “the trade” optical discs aren’t seen as a good candidate for a long-term storage media:

https://www.naa.gov.au/information-management/store-and-preserve-information/preserving-information/preserving-cds-and-dvds

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Wouldn’t a CD player produce drop-outs because it couldn’t read the bits correctly fast enough? A ripper is not usually doing much a CD player doesn’t do. (AccurateRip, perhaps)

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I think a ripper might try harder: its got time to re-read several times, and the benefit of AccurateRip.

I still have my first (AAD, 80’s acquired) CD’s, and touch wood, they still play. Perhaps storage techniques help with longevity, though I’m not doing anything special with them?

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