Is it worth spending $10k on CD-only player today?

I would agree with some of the respondents, get a moderately priced CD player and get it moded in due course. If you're interested in sound not appearence then this is the better route, the more any unit costs, the more seems to be spent on cosmetics. I bought a Shanling CDT 100, because it was the only unit I had heard to make classical music bearable on CD. I spent half the origonal purchase price on a Trichord clock 4, never connected power supply and numerous upgraded components. To me the result more than doubled the value of the unit. No aspect of reproduction was'nt enhanced, particularly the Shanling's weak base and soundstage depth. Colin the upgrader, recently put his heavily modded universal Pioneer player, a $300 unit against a Naim CDS, the owner thought the pioneer was his unit. He immediately had his Naim upgraded of course

I guess you haven't read the Linn Unidisk review? And what you are saying would be true for the vast majority of high end universal players. Redbook CD play taking a secondary role.

UHF magazines reviewers seem to feel it gets very close if not match Linns $14000 Redbook only player. And if you remember right Sony on hearing the original Linn in comparison to their own $8000 flagship player stated they were incapable of making a player of this quality and formed a partnership with Linn.

If your CD collection consists of discs that are almost certainly never to be reissued on SACD or DVD-A and if your musical taste steers you toward older music also "doomed" to not be reissued in higher res format, it is absolutely sensible to spend whatever you can afford to obtain a CD player that has the sound you're looking for.

NO, NO, NO, NO, No, NO!!!!

All you have to do is look back over the years and feel sorry for all the audiophiles who baought a DCS, Mark Levisnon or similar "state of the art" over $10k processer. All of these offerings can now be handily trounced by recent digital alternatives that cost less than a THIRD of their price!

IMHO digital performance has been just like computers. Every year you get twice (or more) the performnance at half the price. (Then again, some people are so wealthy that it doesn't bother them one bit to buy something that is considered antiquated in just a couple years. Wouldn't it be nice to have that kind of "throw away" money though?)

A voice of dissent. A vote for the $10K CD player.

A high end RedBook player is still worth the money. The digital sections of CD players have improved quite a bit over the last five years. Today, digital horsepower is fairly cheap. The mid priced players ($1K-$3K) have come a LONG way.

The improvement in mid-priced players has significantly raised the bar for all products in all price ranges. The devil is still in the details, and the finer points of design and implementation. To achieve that last bit of awesome sound requires more than just a good and well implemented digital filter. The product engineering, chassis, transport, power supplies, parts selection and analog sections must all be top notch. One DAC in particular (quite expensive) has paid specific attention to these (mostly analog) details. Despite the fact that this DAC is 5 or 6 years old, it is still better than the latest dCS stack, or any current standalone player (including my new and "current" big budget Wadia 861se). But this DAC also costs several multiples of the 861se retail price.

As an example, look at the DAC offerings from Audio Note. Very simple digital sections. Very well designed and highly thought out analog sections.

I agree with most of the posts, you can keep buying a $3K CD player every two years, and continually improve your "sound". But none of those players really can touch the $10K players of today. So why not get out of the upgrade game, same your money, buy a single CD player, and enjoy better sound from the get go.

I think this is especially true today while we wait for the music industry to get over their hangups with physical media and finally say goodbye to optical disks. Just make sure that fancy player has a digital input capable of handling 24/96.