I'm going to rip my whole CD collection.

[The Elf]

No guarantees, but WAV must surely be seen as the 'US Dollar' of the audio world? Any size-reduced format that can be converted back to WAV is a good second choice IMHO, though it will be finding the conversion software that may be the stumbling block.

[OneWorld]

They say you can't have too much choice, but I wonder sometimes, how did we go on when we had the choice of either vinyl or cassette. Now I have fallen into the trap of using this format, that format and the other. And music on phone, NAS, tablet, and backups that backup backups. And every now and again I have a sort of an attempt where I say, I am going to sort this lot out today, but I never get to the end of the task, I end up just re-visiting all those tracks I had forgotten I had.

On the subject of cassettes, I was watching an interview with Ed Sheeran, he is a collector of cassettes and has struck up a friendship with some US Rapper, who also is a collector of cassettes and has 1000's of them. I cannot imagine them ever becoming a collectors item as some vinyl does.

But there again, I would never be considered a canny investor, able to spot a trend, if I was around when the wheel was invented I am sure I would have said "It'll never catch on"

[Hugh Robjohns]

No guarantees, but WAV must surely be seen as the 'US Dollar' of the audio world?

Yes, wav is such a simple and universal format I don't see it going away. Its like the .txt or .rtf formats. Fundamental and universal.

The RF64 expansion of wav may become more dominant, but its still wav at its core and so wav will always remain workable.

Alac, as a manufacturer-specific format is more vulnerable to obsolescence, and we all know how Apple like to chop and change, but the user base is huge so I think we're good for a while yet.

[James Perrett]

Does the industry have a mid-long-term plan for file format(s) that is most likely to remain easily accessible for playback in 20 years?

Wav files from 30 years ago are still perfectly playable. The same probably goes for Aiff files to (though I don't have any 30 year old Aiff files to test). Both of these formats are widely supported and extendable to handle new types of data.

I'm creating more and more data in Flac format as it offers a useful saving in size when dealing with large multitrack projects and the format is open source so anyone can write a reader for it. I don't think it will be going away anytime soon but, if it does, I can convert to whatever new format comes along.

[Yearofthegoat]

Another vote for FLAC here. I also use it for multichannel rips of DVD-Audio and SACDs.

All stored on a NAS, can stream from it or load up a phone or SD card for the car.

Metadata seems to work just fine too.

[Sam Spoons]

I use, almost exclusively, Apple devices and iTunes/Apple Music app which, AFAIK won't play FLAC otherwise that would have been my choice. So I've gone for Apple Lossless (ALAC) for convenience. It's worth noting that ALAC was placed in the public domain by Apple a few years ago so third party devs can use it without issue, if I do eventually return to Windoze (highly unlikely TBH) there will be a third party app for me to use and converting between ALAC and FLAC should not present a problem.

[Yearofthegoat]

Yeah, keeping a copy which allows you to retrieve the original rip is the main thing. You'll almost certainly then be able to transcode into whatever future format comes along, even if it takes two steps to do it.

[Chimera]

I’ve taken a different approach. I ripped everything to FLAC and with the cheapness of storage copied to ALAC to utilise in iTunes on a Mac. I would advise ensuring your sound files are backed up. Having the CD as a backup isn’t good enough. Some of my CDs developed glitches and faults after a particularly hot period in the summer. Keep them cool!

[Sam Spoons]

It is all being backed up to a second HDD daily during the process. I see no point in ripping to FLAC and converting to ALAC as ALAC can be converted to FLAC and all my playback devices are Apple anyway.

I have had a couple of CD-Rs fail and one commercial CD prove troublesome (I have managed to do a digital transfer of the latter to my Marantz PMD570 from my HHB Burn-It, copied as PCM/WAV to a CF card).

[Yearofthegoat]

Just picking up on the illegality of backing up your discs, technically the only way to replace duff ones is to buy them again, but unfortunately there are lots of discs in my collection that just aren't available any more - new anyway.

Particularly older pressings prior to the loudness wars that prompted so many horrible re-mastered re-issues with squashed dynamic range.

From a moral standpoint, I back up discs that I have bought legitimately and I don't share/give/sell my backup files. They're literally a safety net for my disc collection.

[Kwackman]

From a moral standpoint, I back up discs that I have bought legitimately and I don't share/give/sell my backup files. They're literally a safety net for my disc collection.

Same here. All CDs I own have been imported into an iTunes library (AIFF/WAV) and I have a back up of that iTunes library in case of HD failure. I still have the CDs. Technically I think I've broken the law by doing that, but I'll take my chances in court!