Mr. T wrote:
"Sonic Man" wrote in message
...

Say you are a typical recorded sound consumer, and over the last who
knows how many years you accumulated
- hundreds vinyl LPs, some vinyl singles, and maybe even some old 78s
- hundreds cassette tapes, prerecorded and your own recordings
- hundreds CDs, prerecorded and your own recordings
with pop, jazz, classical music and spoken word.

Now you decide to invest the effort to put it all in one medium, so you
can throw away the turntable and the cassette deck. What will you do?


Keep the turntable and cassette deck for future use. You are unlikely to
convert all those old recordings in one go! Just start with the important
stuff.


Convert the vinyl and tapes to .wav files and put them all on CDs that
you can play in CD players and on your computer?
Convert everything into MP3 files, back them up on DVDs, and download
them into your iPod or home system as needed?


Simple. The vinyl, and tapes have to be converted to wave files to go to
MP3/WMA etc. anyway. Burn them to CD at that stage (CDR's are cheap now)
Now convert to MP3/WMA/OGG/whatever else comes along, as necessary for
mobile/convenience uses.


I would prefer to manage just one format long-term, but I will consider
your suggestion if I understand it better. Why is it better to use .wav
for archiving (on CDRs), and not for example MP3? Do you see the .wav
standard as more long-lived?

And if the .wav files are only for archiving, not for playing, why not
store them on DVDs, to save on storage volume?