This article examines the paradigm shift in the preservation and study of sound archives in China, particularly those of traditional musics, moving from a focus on technical digitisation towards annotation, documentation, and—in its key concept—recontextualisation. Through multiple case studies—from early wax-cylinder recordings to contemporary field collections—I demonstrate how sound archives can be recontextualised by excavating their narrative, emotional, and cultural dimensions. I argue that sound archives should be treated as living cultural texts, embedded with rich layers of social,historical,and personal meaning. Such an approach reactivates sound as a medium for cultural dialogue, identity negotiation,and interdisciplinary research. Ultimately, the study calls for a more integrated, multimodal methodology in digital humanities—one that engages with sound archives not as isolated artefacts,but as dynamic resources for understanding “where we are” and “who we are.”

sound archives , digitization , documentation , annotation , appraisal , recontextualization traditional music , sonic heritage