Stereophile: A Stable Medium

In Britain, media have been reporting a strange mould affecting audiotape and videotape. Thousands of kilometres of magnetic tape have already been destroyed by the dust-like substance...

It seems, dear music lovers, that nature is rebelling against our inferior audio and video formats! It's almost like some summer blockbuster with that wonder-eyed Zooey Deschanel and what's his name.

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Posted Thu Aug 7, 2008, 11:34 AM — By selfdivider

He f&*^ing threw away his Caruso 78s b/c he didn't think people still listened to vinyl!! ARgghghghg!!!

Posted Thu Aug 7, 2008, 12:56 PM — By Stephen Mejias

Horrifying, isn't it?

Posted Thu Aug 7, 2008, 12:59 PM — By michaelavorgna

a book printed using 16th-century technology can still be easily read by any user. We don't have to find a 16th-century viewing-machine to see it through.

Oh crap! I just upgraded to paper 2.0. Will that be a problem?

Posted Thu Aug 7, 2008, 2:05 PM — By AlexO

The reason that Vinyl is archival is because it's not bio-degradable, thus very earth unfriendly. :D

Posted Thu Aug 7, 2008, 3:04 PM — By john devore

Actually professor AlexO, it's very earth friendly. What's truly unfriendly, hostile even, is a format that becomes obsolete in a decade or two and is unceremoniously swept into landfills. A vinyl LP in a paper sleeve that stays in use for 30-60 years is a whole lot more friendly than an aluminum and polycarbonate CD in a PVC jewelbox that someone chucks in a landfill in 7-8 years when it skips, or is ripped to their iPod.

Posted Thu Aug 7, 2008, 11:25 PM — By Jerry

Actually john devore...they're ALL earth unfriendly, EXCEPT music downloaded online from the digital ether. You can't pollute the world with 1's and 0's. (well, thats debatable on another level, I suppose.)

Posted Fri Aug 8, 2008, 10:00 AM — By michaelavorgna

Actually Jerry...What do think the average life span is of the PC or hard drive you download that music onto? 2 - 5 years? Then a huge % of PCs are off to the landfill. Figure tens of millions of PCs in landfills already...and of course PCs are filled with lots of nice toxic stuff. (not to mention monitors)

Posted Fri Aug 8, 2008, 10:25 AM — By AlexO

Just call me Al Goresky. :D

Posted Wed Aug13, 2008, 1:34 PM — By Buddha

I wonder if the strange Mould is Bob.

Sorry, obscure Husker Du joke.

Maybe when we go fully non-volatile with our digital music storage things will keep better. What's the life span of a flash drive thing? Glass CD's?

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