The best sound comes from the high end players but only marginally so as stated above. For the money "budget" players do an incredible job. I own 3 budget players 2 are in the under 1k mark the Music Hall cd 25 is a giant killer, I get amore relaxed sound from my Jolida, but I must admit that my most expensive player an Audio Aero Prima provides the most enjoyable sound and it retails for about $2-3K. I bought mine used otherwise I wouldn't afford it. Between that and a DCS elgar system and other $20,000+ units are the exclusive factors and yes some better sound but its incremental. I have to agree with the others who say its mostly just a prestige factor. If I had the money I might go for the better AA but thats about as far as I think it makes any sense. I have no idea what really cost the manfacturer so much make those players other than very small production runs and R+D.
What makes a $20,000 cd player cost 20,000?
Hi,
Listened to a Linn Sondeck CD12 (sp?) a few years back and the thing amazed me.
Was expecting that digital player development would continue to progress and that this level of performance would become available in the 2-5,000 range. It appears to me that redbook cd player development has stagnated, so I wanted to run a couple questions by for a sanity check.
1. Is there anything in the design or manufacture of top notch cd players that neccessarily results in stratospheric production costs?
2. Has anything come out in the last two or three years that really struck you as raising the bar in the price to performace ratio?
Happy listening.
Listened to a Linn Sondeck CD12 (sp?) a few years back and the thing amazed me.
Was expecting that digital player development would continue to progress and that this level of performance would become available in the 2-5,000 range. It appears to me that redbook cd player development has stagnated, so I wanted to run a couple questions by for a sanity check.
1. Is there anything in the design or manufacture of top notch cd players that neccessarily results in stratospheric production costs?
2. Has anything come out in the last two or three years that really struck you as raising the bar in the price to performace ratio?
Happy listening.