Now this thread is going on 6 yrs old! I was out of audio for a while and now I can't afford hi-end stuff, but my sense is that CD players never really got good, I mean it's strange that you can't just buy any cheapo CD player from one of the big companies and have it sound OK as you could with a tape player, for example. I guess digital sound is just too difficult for the mass market; no one has found the magic bullet to make it sound great for pennies, although not to say that someone won't some day crack it. Also I never understand why music at, say, Borders book store always sounds quite good and they say they use just 'mass market' CD players. I don't believe that.
