Yes changing temperatures are not good for them since the layers have different thermal expansion...there is slight mechanical impact then all the time. But when stored at common room temperature ranges there should be no issues..... Original CDs have different qualities at least I noticed differences....some are more transparent to light than others....but as said no errors there... Some of my first burnt CD-Rs have got errors already... some of the earlier used materials of CD-Rs don't have got a good quality....they changed color after some years already... I think problematic are rather burnt CD-Rs than originals.....
The best storage medium will eventually fail. So you have to renew your backup after a number of years, depending on medium and conditions, and in best combination of these, not later than 10 years.
Alas... there is something we might be able to count on.... Called M-Disc, and it's written in stone: https://www.extremetech.com/computing/92286-m-disc-is-a-dvd-made-out-of-stone-that-lasts-1000-years
Interesting find. Looks promising on paper (or rather prototype blue-print) but only actual practice will tell, and that may take a long time. Until then, unexpected things might go wrong. The story comes to mind of this guy in the old days who bought watch that was antimagnetic, shockproof, rustproof, waterproof, acidproof, dropproof, scratchproof, attrition-proof… So he took it home, and it caught fire. You see, it wasn’t fireproof.
Actually, the old vinyl records were more resistant to aging than the digital media that replaced them, provided of course you didn't play them. I have a large collection in good condition and it's likely to stay so as I don't play them nowadays. But I wonder, if they develop an optical reader that doesn't scratch the vinyl, it could become a usable storage medium.
When this becomes commercially available at a reasonable price, it'll be awesome http://www.sciencealert.com/this-ne...-can-store-360tb-of-data-for-14-billion-years I wonder how much music you could store, given 360 TB of space? Not to mention that you could store it in a lossless format.
MP3. I can't recognize a difference with higher quality formats unless I concentrate. However, I work and listen at the same time so it doesn't matter.
Would you pay $1000 for in-ear headphones? AKG’s new $1,000 in-ear headphones promise studio-quality AKG has announced its new N5005 in-ear headphones at CES, clocking in at $1,000. The N5005 is beautifully sleek, coming in a scratch-resistant, high-gloss black. High-res audio support means it can deliver higher than CD quality resolution, and a hybrid of AKG’s One Dynamic and Quad BA drivers give it a five-way design promising “ultra-low distortion, accurate mids and crystal-clear highs.” The AKG N5005 will be available in spring 2018 for $999.95 on AKG.com and at select retailers. https://www.theverge.com/circuitbre...5005-headphones-in-ear-sound-filters-ces-2018 I wonder what sound media you’d be listening to at “higher than CD quality resolution”.
There is an even more expensive sennheiser one https://www.digitaltrends.com/home-theater/senneheiser-reveals-50000-orpheus-headphones/
No. I'd not buy any in-ear headphone. Sound changes drastically with the fitting (tight or more loose) and when wearing at places with high humidity I frequently got inflammation of ear canal. (Tried those which usually come with a smartphone). 'Studio quality' whatever definition. For studio use nobody would use in ears..... It's been 1991. And the price for some prototypes. They only have made 300 pieces. Later (2006) they made them again and sold them for $4500 without the tube amp though. 2015 they developed the Orpheus further to the HE 1060 and tube amp HEV 1060. They are electrostatic headphones. People say they have best pulse accuracy. Besides of the open and closed design there are different designs for the driver. Electrostatic, magnetostatic and electrodynamic. The latter are most common.
Not directly comparable. I specified "in-ear", yours are over the ear and closed type, different animal. Anyway, in-ear aren't worth a big investment for the reasons mentioned by Yen, plus you need absolutely quiet environment. But I found that the good quality SONY I forked out for do sound better than the half-price JVC ones I had tried. On the other hand, over the ear closed aren't really suitable for walking around with, e.g. for my morning walk. So each type to its uses.
HD Vinyl records may hit the stores by Next Year “High Definition Vinyl” has moved closer to a turntable near you. In 2016, a European patent filing described a way of manufacturing records that would have higher audio fidelity, louder volume, and longer playing times than conventional LPs. Now, the Austrian-based startup Rebeat Innovation has received $4.8 million in funding for the initiative, founder and CEO Günter Loibl told Pitchfork. Thanks to the investment, the first “HD vinyl” albums could hit stores as early as 2019. The HD vinyl process involves converting audio digitally to a 3D topographic map. Lasers are then used to inscribe the map onto the “stamper,” the part that stamps the grooves into the vinyl. According to Loibl, these methods allow for records to be made more precisely and with less loss of audio information. The results, he said, are vinyl LPs that can have up to 30 percent more playing time, 30 percent more amplitude, and overall more faithful sound reproduction. The technique would also avoid the chemicals that play a role in traditional vinyl manufacturing. Plus, the new-school HD vinyl LPs would still play on ordinary record players. https://pitchfork.com/news/high-definition-vinyl-is-happening-possibly-as-early-as-next-year/
MP3 and FLAC? What about AAC, Vorbis, Opus, whatever? FLAC for storage (FLAC with CUE sheets actually), Apple AAC for on the go. Afaik other lossless codecs have very little (if any) compression improvements over FLAC. And FLAC is extra fast to encode/decode and has widespread support. On the lossy side newer OPUS only has noticeable benefits on the very low bitrate end of things, MP3 is obsolete, WMA... is that still alive? and of the Vorbis/AAC encoders the Apple AAC one is the best (https://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=AAC_encoders) The music I listen to is available on CD at best, so all the Hi-Res BS is meaningless to me.
I was going with flac/wav but ended up converting all my flac/wav files to MP3 320 CBR. The file size is so much smaller and to me it sounds the same but I don't have the best sound system so... My music collection used to take up 160 GB and now it's not even 50 GB so it can all fit on the 64 GB USB that I use in my car.