Should Sound Quality of Computer Audio be improved

Most of your arguements contain alot of emotion, but a little short on logic- and reason.

Now that's the pot calling the kettle black!!!!!!

Pettyofficer is probably right about the magnetic formats, we all know how bad those ancient real to real tapes sound.... Sorry, petty doesn't want to discuss the stone age. Better not mention SSD drives

Pettyofficer,

SSD may help if you are worried. I am sure the magnetic drive will last long enough to be backed up.

I was under the impression that CDs if kept under the correct conditions were said to last 25years. This may refer to the writable ones though. Although I did read that the early CDs could start to flake after a while. If memory serves it was due to the type of black print used on the label side. Anyone else remember that?

The primary concern about CD logevity, so far, has not been realized. Before CD, there was actually the video laser disc. The disc is a sandwich of plastic with a metal layer in between. That layer of aluminum could corrode if exposed to air. With a lot of the laser discs, the gluing of the plastic layers was not perfect and air managed to work its way into the sandwich and oxide the aluminum. This was referred to as laser rot. I saw the result with quite a few laser discs. The CD is made differently and very few have suffered from such oxidation problems. I think that CDs are quite robust.

No one has even challenged my premiss of Hard Drives being the equivalent of "Cassette Tapes on Disks with magnetic particles of 1's and 0's". Does this mean that you all agree with it? If so, the same threats to magnetic flux based Cassette Tape still remain the same threats to Hard Drives.

Your concern about magnets and hard drives is misplaced, PettyOfficer, for two reasons. I'm happy to discuss them here.

1) Digital files can be stored on any medium you choose, PettyOfficer. A number of digital storage mediums are impervious to being Degaussed and suffering data loss. USB drives and solid state disks are both common formats which would survive your theoretical "gigantic magnet" test.

2) Hard Drive degaussing requires prolonged exposure to electromagnets that weigh more than you can carry and require a connection to an electrical socket. Those magnets are not only *incredibly* powerful, but they are designed to produce a very specialized field for the sole purpose of erasing a hard drives. Normal magnets, even "gigantic" magnets, won't do the trick without really prolonged exposure, upwards of 30 minutes. Unless you simply leave your hard drives lying around next to your computer case, this is unlikely enough a situation as to be practically impossible.

Hard drives are not cassette tapes. Not all magnets (or magnetic storage devices) are created equal.

Really, any scenario where my drives are exposed to a giant magnet powerful enough to erase them is no more likely than my disks being exposed to an open fire capable of melting them. Everything physical can be destroyed.

For comparison, I work for the Department of State. My office routinely deals in information classified at a TS/SCI level, which is literally as crucial as data could possibly be. That data is safely stored on magnetic hard drives.

Still, no one will even try to answer why there is no replacement guarantee on Music Files if anything should happen to them. Give me the logic and reason behind that!

Also not so. I am happy to relieve you of this fear as well. iTunes (for example) will allow you to download any of your purchases numerous times. Amazon does the same, as does BandCamp, 7digital, and countless others.

More to the point, though, who is providing you with a guarantee on your CDs? We've already established that Hard Disks are as safe as CDs for storing data, but should my hard drive be destroyed by, say, a natural disaster, I could retrieve all my data from a cloud backup or re-download it from the store where I bought it. Could you take your story and a hand-written list of albums you lost to a Tower Records and expect the same?

If you can provide any evidence that hard disks are susceptible to magnetic erasure (degaussing) that I didn't find, do so here. Otherwise, you're making an assertion you now know to be untrue.