I also own CDs I use from the very first days of CD!
I have never seen a CD degrade! (though I have seen CDs at the library where the data side surface peels off, but of hundreds of thousands rare. way below like 0,001%
This other comment
roberjerman said: "There is NO way to get any more musical information off a 16/44.1 CD! "
Well sorry to tell you there is.
The main reason I bought a new Marantz SACD/CD player with digital inputs was the fact it really does do more with CD than I ever heard before.
The Marantz DAC secion converts the CD data to DSD and then ups the game to Mhz territory to decode.
The results are CD sound as good as any SACD, and better since so many SACD destroy the room, presenting as if out of a black hole. (not so when it does CDs. more detail and the room is still there. lust better.
I had looked a long time for something to be a lot better than my old $250 used DAC! (in this quest I tried a raved about $2500 DAC and found it was no better than my used Adcom, and I returned it) I am cheap, but the Marantz was worth the $7K
It finally made my digital sound as good (but different) than my turntable