QUOTE: Cassette tapes and CDs are joining the vinyl-led retro audio boom, driven by listener desire for physical media as well as the stronger revenue potential for artists, which have both been lacking in the streaming era.

The return to physical audio technology has seen equipment to manufacture records, discs and tapes that was destined for scrapping instead restored and capacities ramped up across the country. Meanwhile overseas, production lines for devices that play the historic audio mediums are reopening, and local retailers are selling boombox and Walkman-like devices ahead of Christmas. -- SMH

I have a Teac reel-to-reel, lots of vinyl and I still buy CD's, but absolutely no cassettes. I hate them. Too many bad memories of pulling tape out of players.

Yes GTC I still prefer CD's to any other medium but I still buy the odd second-had vinyl occasionally.

Coincidentally, I'm in the process of playing my collection of 500 cassettes before disposal. Almost all are recordings from the radio. I'm amazed that after spending years in a hot shed, that the vast majority of them (so far) still play.

No interest in Vinyl, although there's still a bunch that I need to get rid of.

Not long ago I played my collection of CDs, and unfortunately many of them are having difficulty, skipping, or in a few cases have some kind of growth between the layers rendering the CD largely useless.

Record Companies would want to charge you a fee every time you play a song, even for dead artists, but not many people like that idea.

Ahh yes! Had fun extracting a length of tape from a car Cassette player recently. Both they and CD players do not like our fourth world roads.

About six months ago I purchased a new car radio and found it very difficult to get one with a CD player, which was a requirement as I do not do the phone thing. I ended up getting a top of the line Pioneer system, which pretty much has everything DAB+/AM/FM radio, DVD, CD, Bluetooth, maps/GPS, etc. I simply refuse to throw hundreds of dollars worth of CDs in the bin simply because using them is looked on as backward and now I have the option of DVD as well, so I could watch a movie whilst eating a meal if I was too tired to drive. Despite the vehicle being a 4x4 and some of the roads and fire tracks being bumpy, I've never had the CD player run out of buffer memory, which is fantastic.

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A valve a day keeps the transistor away...

in a few cases have some kind of growth between the layers rendering the CD largely useless.

Known as 'CD rot'. I haven't experienced it yet myself.

I have recently experienced "CD Rot" in a disc set purchased from Ebay.
One track was skipping, and on inspection if held up to a light source an area of rot could be seen and a pin hole right through the disc.
JJ

One thing to consider is, are these CD's made of bio degradable plastic? One thing noted around here with the forth world roads, was that they exceeded the parameters that the vehicle suspensions were designed for. A suspension here is usually repaired every 30K last road car front end once, rear twice and the one before that similar. Motorcycle rear once and the Ute front four and rear shackles once shockers 2.

That sort of road destroys CD's as the read arm constantly hits the disk eventually killing it.

I've personally never experienced "CD rot" and something like that would have something to do with the pressing plant the CDs were made in. Back when CDs were the mainstream, Australia had two big pressing plants that I knew of - Disctronics and Sony both made CDs here and were amongst the first. I don't know if they still exist, given the numbers of pressings would be a lot lower now. I think Sony did close down a few years ago. There is a smaller operation in Silverwater, NSW but I don't know who the owner is.

Many CDs would now be imported I would imagine.

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A valve a day keeps the transistor away...

It's also said that CD rot tends to affect 'home-made' CDs, such as data backups.

Then there's this:

QUOTE: In 2020, several Warner Bros-distributed discs from 2005 to 2009 were affected with disc rot, due to a factory issue with the glue used to label the DVDs. The issue was unaddressed until 2025 when Warner Bros. offered replacements for defective discs, and similar copies of previous releases which were already discontinued.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disc_rot

Correct, about the label glue.
In fact any scratches, indents or pen writing on the label will definitely ruin a CD.
Whereas the shiny side can become quite scratched with no effect. Up to 1.5 millimeter's material thick, and even then can be polished out. JJ

That is what most miss with optical discs - the label is the reflector. When I place a disc on the table or whatever I place it face down (with the label up) and whilst that seems counter-intuitive, it protects the label from any damage. Up to a point, scratches from the underside can be buffed out and minor scratches, for some odd reason, seem to have no effect, providing they are not close to parallell with the tracks - as this is what causes the laser to skip tracks.

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A valve a day keeps the transistor away...