LPs: the end of an era?

I recently decided that I should finally get rid of most of my classical music LP collection (over a hundred albums). Most of it was acquired secondhand at library sales, garage sales, and the like back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when I found classical CDs to be way too expensive, and the selections at the time were limited also, with many old recordings still not yet reissued. I only ever bought a handful of LPs brand new, in around 1989, even as it was already clear that CDs were going to win for keeps.

In any case, how could I argue when I could and did, for example, buy a nice three-LP box of Mozart's six "Haydn" string quartets, performed by the Quartetto Italiano, for just $4? At random, I decided to listen to a side, and sat down, closed my eyes, and listened to Mozart's string quartet no. 16 in E-flat major, K. 428. The slight crackling noise from the LP didn't bother me much at all. Yes, there was life before digital recordings. Recorded in 1966, this LP sounds just fine; the sound is natural and full enough, and you can make out the different parts.

To my surprise, when I tried to search online for a CD reissue of these performances, I found a CD box set of the complete Mozart quartets by the Quartetto Italiano, but it was out of print! How ironic. This CD set was issued in 1991, apparently, a couple of years after I had bought the LP set (of just the six quartets dedicated to Hadyn), but now is out of print. So much for my expectation that I would be able to listen to CD performances nowadays. So I'm keeping this LP set instead of getting rid of it as originally planned!

I'm going to have to look up many of the other LPs to see if they have existing CD reissues.

It's something of a shame that the Quartetto Italiano's Mozart recordings are now an endangered species. They weren't necessarily my favorite, and stylistically one hears more driven performances these days, but they were good.

Addendum: I am apparently wrong that these recordings are endangered. In another twist of irony, I've seen Google links suggesting that there are torrents out there of these performances! That means immortality, of course. I do not download torrents of music, but I am tickled to think that there are aficionados of the Quartetto Italiano out there keeping their performances alive even after the Philips label stopped selling them.