That, at any rate, has been my experience.

Take just recently. My latest clutch of second hand classical acquisitions included a double CD of assorted chamber music by Louis Spohr (at a mere fiver from Neil's barrow in Lower Marsh) and this SACD/CD hybrid disc of the Brahms Violin Concerto, played by Joseph Swenson (scroll down – it is there), on Telarc (for £:3.50 ditto). Excellent bargains both, and notice that, in my part of the market, SACD seems to command little in the way of a premium. (I bought it as much to scrutinise the new and – presumably – they think – improved CD case that SACD/CD hybrid discs come in.

The Brahms is a lovely piece which I can't hear too often, and of the Spohr discs, follow the link above, scroll down, and they end by saying this:

MDG Gold are releasing some wonderful recordings and should be given the appropriate accolades. This is an exceptional double CD set of previously released material that will give Spohr’s chamber music a significant boost and gain him many new supporters. Superbly performed and recorded this is a release worthy of inclusion in any serious collection.

So thank you Neil of Lower Marsh, very much. But I only feel this now, after the difficulties I am about to recount were surmounted.

Because, both these fine recordings misbehaved in my hitherto very satisfactory Marantz CD-48 player. The Spohr went haywire on side 1 track 3. The Brahms played for a while but then went completely crazy, jumping hither and thither like a mad thing, and eventually deciding that there was "no DISC" inside, regardless of the fact that there plainly was. With the Spohr disc, I blamed the Spohr disc. After all, most stuff is playing fine, so it has to be the disc, right? But then, when the Brahms disc was playing its evil tricks, I thought, hang on, maybe I've been here before.

A few years ago, a great many of my CDs started misbehaving, and I thought that (a) CDs don't last and had finally starting melting into oblivion, and that accordingly (b) Western Civilisation was now at an end. But then I thought, for no reason that I can recall, but I did, that maybe it was my CD player. So I bought another. My tastes in fi are relatively low – medium at best - so this was not an especially painful procedure. (What matters to me is adequate sound with no clicks and jumps.) And sure enough, from then on, almost all CDs except those which had quite clearly been stampeded upon by hippopotami worked fine. Western Civilisation could proceed with undimmed excellence.

So, when these Brahms and Spohr discs started misbehaving, I tried them on a different CD player, which this time I already possess. My Goodmans GPS 280 digital radio cum CD player. And guess what: no problems. None at all. The entire Goodmans GPS 280 cost only £100 or thereabouts, so it isn't the technical splendour of its CD player that is making the difference, simply the fact that the Goodmans GPS CD players is working properly, while the Marantz CD-48 is not now working so well. Nearly, because most things still play fine on it. Just not quite properly.

Come to think of it, I do seem to recall some mugs falling out of the mug cupboard on the Marantz CD-48. So maybe the descending mugs jerked the CD player out of alignment, or made some connection dodgy, or something.

Could this not be mended, for less than the price of a new CD player? Maybe, but who needs the grief of finding out. Have you ever tried to get a piece of electronic equipment mended? – after it's out of warranty, I mean? I have. Never again. They charge an arm just to tell you what needs doing and whether it's worth it, and actually doing it costs the other arm, and a leg. Forget it.

Our world is not now organised to mend things. It organised to make things. So, if your thing is not working, throw it away, and get another. Okay this doesn't work with cars yet (although give it time), but this is definitely the rule to apply to something like CD players. So that is what I will do.

The reason I mention all this is that, commenting on a piece I did on Samizdata about books, which also mentioned CDs in passing, Andrew Duffin had this to say about whether the CD format will last:

Well if it does you had better make sure you buy good ones; none of them seems to last more than about ten years before the information becomes unreadable.

Stick to books I say. And vinyl for your music.

But I have many thousands of CDs which are the best part of twenty years old (including many second hand ones which were at least a decade old when I bought them), and the only time I've suffered a plague of jumpings and clickings is just before I replace a CD player, i.e. now, and that previous time. Apart from that, no worries.

So maybe, probably I would say, Andrew Duffin just needs a new CD player.

Further thoughts. CD copies tend to cause problems, in my experience, more so than factory done originals. Plus: could there be any significance in the fact that, like many of those copies, both the Spohr and the Brahms discs mentioned above are gold in colour rather than silver, on their playing surface? Does that make things harder for a very slightly wonky CD player to deal with?