The Lifespan of an LP?


How many times can one play a new vinyl lp before the sound noticeably degrades? For the purpose of the exercise, assume one takes decent care of the record and has a properly set up and maintained, good quality deck and stylus. My system has been taking quantum leaps in quality over the last three years and I find myself buying more mint and near-mint vintage  records on Discogs and audiophile remastered records from MoFi etc. Thanks!
heilbron

Showing 1 response by antinn

The ARSC Guide to Audio Preservation, 2015 (https://www.clir.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/pub164.pdf) commissioned for and sponsored by the National Recording Preservation Board of the Library of Congress, states: “Vinyl discs are the most stable physical sound recording format developed to date; they can last 100 years in a controlled environment.”  History will probably show >100 years.

The RCA record composition developed (early 1970's) for quadrasonic play with a Shibata stylus (RCA Engineer Magazine, 1976, Issue
02-03, Development of Compound for Quadradiscs, by G.A. Bogantz S.K. Khanna 1976-02-03.pdf (worldradiohistory.com)) at 1.5 gram after 100 plays showed little or no wear. They did show clean-narrow trenching with a Conical stylus at 4.5 grams after 100 plays, but a Shibata or equivalent stylus shape would bridge the trench and playback with full fidelity. 

We should hope that current record compositions follow what RCA developed which is open source info they detailed in their patent - RCA Patent 3,960,790, June 1, 1976, DISC RECORD AND METHOD OF COMPOUNDING DISC RECORD COMPOSITION  1498409551006799538-03960790 (storage.googleapis.com)