Maximum Cartridge Tracking Force for long LP Life

@richardbrand   Thanks tons for the very informative treatise on caring for records. This confirms the value of using appropriate styli and tracking force and cleaning records using proper methods. I believe that this is indisputable. I was simply commenting on the idea held by some that records have a very short life, irrespective of the benefits of proper care and usage. (Truth be told, back in the day we used to play a new record once to make a cassette recording and then play that.) 

Fact is that an LP will last forever if not exposed to excessive heat or cold or humidity and not subjected to abuse by an audiophile. Whereas a CD will not, no matter how well you care for it. I'm less sure of this, but I don't think digital copies of anything will last forever.

@lewm "...Fact is that an LP will last forever if not exposed to excessive heat or cold or humidity and not subjected to abuse by an audiophile...."

That has been my experience. I have had albums for nearly sixty years an they sound great. How many times can you play them? Dozens... sure... hundreds? That is hard to imagine. Also, my turntables have gotten better and the needle drops deeper into the grove (I think).

So, unless it is at a radio station and getting played thousands of times, I would think wear is a thing. 

"Maximum Cartridge Tracking Force for long LP Life"

I am worrying more about $$$ cartridge life time! same cut diamond will last x4 times longer @1gf for MM vs. @gf MC, same brand! 

@lewm 

I'm less sure of this, but I don't think digital copies of anything will last forever

All physical media have a finite life, due to the second law of thermodynamics - on average, disorder increases in our universe.

in addition to general decay, vinyl records wear a little each time they are played.  We don't really know how long CDs and other silver disks will last - they have not been around that long - say half a century.  There have been a few instances where the reflective layer has oxidized, but this seems to be down to faulty manufacturing.

The problem is worse in the film industry where acetate tapes, apart from being highly flammable, disintegrate within a human lifetime.  For this reason, the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia is digitizing its collection.  Often the archival copy is on CD-like optical storage.

A bigger problem is that while the media may last for a very long time, the transports needed to read that media become obsolete quite quickly.  There was an industry joke that next year's optical media are made from the holes cut from last year's optical media.

The only 'fact' I am sure of is that a new copy of a digital source should be identical in content to the original because of the extraordinary error detection and correction schemes that are available.  So a digital source can be copied forever, even if it consumes many generations of media