"There Is an Even More Insidious Problem with Digital Systems.

As much as binary code might be a universal language, the methods of processing it are always evolving. 'There really isn't an archival medium for digital data,' [Steve] Albini explains. 'Computer technology has changed so rapidly that drive specifications and media specifications change constantly. That's one of the benefits of the computer paradigm - it changes quickly to adapt to its market. But it also makes formats into orphans. Lets say you discovered a nine-track tape of a digital audio recording. What would you do with it? You wouldn't be able to play it. You wouldn't be able to decipher the audio that's on it. Even if you could find something to play it back to, you'd need to find some way of looking at the file, some way of determining what that data meant. It's a virtually irretrievable recording once the specific system it was recorded on is no longer in use.' The mighty compact disc may not be immune to this vicious evolution. 'The vinyl record will certainly outlast CDs. I don't think we will see the end of vinyl LP manufacture in my lifetime.'

It’s too early to know if this dystopia is what's in store for our digital audio world. But if it ever comes, a lot of music will no longer make a sound. Neil Young said we'd wake up one day and wonder what the digital age really sounded like. What an awful question to ask and literally not be able to answer."

- Greg Milner, "Perfecting Sound Forever": An Aural History of Recorded Music (Faber and Faber, Inc., 2009)