Why CD players so expensive when the fomat is dead

Worse than that, the practice of releasing collections of new songs by artists in album format may be on its deathbed also. Ipods, downloads and music servers seem to killing the album but pumping life into individual compositions.

I think the thing killing albums is simply competition. There are so many things competing for peoples leisure time these days, you have to have a very good album to warrant the time spent getting something out of it. Instant gratification man! I can download most any song on a whim these days, put it on my music server and listen to it as aI please along with everything else there. I listen a lot to my collection with the cuts randomly queued up on music server, 1 by 1, a lot these days. What a great way to discover new gems that might otherwise be overlooked. occasionally, I will still que up a CD in original track order or play a record (not many options there).