Differences in CD players? Am I crazy?

Teac in Japan is not the same as Teac here I think. This is definitely not a cheap cd player, it weighs a solid 17kg and has 4 20 bit dacs and 8x oversampling. I know it retailed for about 2900USD but sadly I'm having trouble hearing any difference. I went to a hi-end shop here in Toronto where they do an upgrade to it on the anaolgue stage and compared the two, once again, hearing almost no difference. Others I know who have performed this upgrade swear by it and say that nothing under 4grand competes with the cd player.

I've been into headphones for a while, and noticed in that 'hobby', that the headphones accounted for 90 percent of the difference, and source and amp were very subtle changes.

Is it the same in speakers? How much of the difference in a system would you say the speakers account for? I bought this cdplayer as the first step in acquiring a system with Martin Logan speakers. At the shop, they salesman swore that it was necessary to put money down for a high end source.

Ok, I went to the shop last night and compared my CD player to the modded one. It blew me away. I was listening to it on a pair of FAB One speakers and an antique sound labs tube amp, also modded. When they switched from the modded player back to mine, I heard the depth of the music shrink down instantly. All the sound was coming from the front of teh speakers, whereas before, it was coming from about 10 feet behind them. As well, with the modded player I could localize the different instruments in space, above me, to the left, farther back etc. I couldn't believe it. He also switched his 500 dollar carbon cable for my 85 dollar copper ones and it was a tremendous difference.

I'm sold! I couldn't believe it!