See THIS article about a man who resurrected the words of Edison, and other old recorded radio broadcasts…
The issue wasn’t the condition of the media, but rather the loss of technology to play back the sounds. Seems that no one has a handy machine….a “pallophotophone” (shaking light sound) with which to playback the audio.
Despite the lack, and the need to “reinvent the wheel” they were successful in recreating the playback machine.
But one wonders what other media is languishing in some vault, or on a shelf, with no playback device…How much other data is lost forever, Ala NASA and the moon landing video and audio…
So does it really matter? Should we care?