Why CD players so expensive when the fomat is dead

I just cannot imagine buying a high priced CD player especially one that does not have a digital input.

Audiohpiles just love to torture themselves! I used to be the guy sitting there loading up a single CD into a 45 lb player waiting for my SET amp to warm up before I could "really" listen. What an awful time in my life! This hobby had me by the b*lls!

The issue is not CD players really- it is more the fact that 16/44.1 sucks and always has. Okay- it has gotten better recently but when the clicking and popping LP is preferred you know there is just something inherantly wrong. Lets be honest!

Now SACD/DVDA and 24bit downloads- this stuff is good! Too bad the first two are also DEAD which leaves PCs that can properly ourput the latter as the only real option these days for those looking forward.

I totally agree w/Robr45.On a side note,Ive personally know of 2 local Walmart superstores that have pulled CD sales and placed prepaid phones in its place,So to the guy that states its a lie,maybe you need to be looking down the road for a new job!.From what Ive heard the download avenue blows away LP and CD.Sure there will always be the oldschool die hards that just love the turntable or their DCS players but they represent a very small number of market share

What about the guy (me) who inadvertently grabs an .mp3 of a 10 year old track from a CD that is out of print (Clipper from Autechre's Tri Repeatae), and absolutely MUST have the CD? In this age of high-tech, low-quality rips that are everywhere, how do I find lossless versions of this and other newly-discovered, out-of-production music? Searching the globe for an online store that has the CD!
CDs wont be dead until lossless downloads are available for EVERY song in EVERY genre. That is a lot of hard drive space. They say storage is cheap, but it ain't that cheap!
Maybe music stores are dying, or getting consolidated, but not the CD - not yet. Internet sales are affecting everything.
.m4a and .aac still are not as good as the lossless formats. And I don't have a 45 pound, $5000 CD player. I just don't have that kind of money. The most I would spend is $500 and I am going PC audio, with all the music ripped lossless from - you guessed it - CDs!

IMO ,"DEAD" is an over exaggeration by the poster.It makes no sense to pay 1000s of dollars for a CD/SACD player these days when high quality download is available.Thats how I read the post which I agree with

First of all, well engineered CDs sound great.

Second of all, CD is not dead but is declining in both sales and in daily usage. Personally, I buy my own CDs then rip to FLAC. But, I am pretty sure everyone I know download their music from iTunes or some other site. They either don't like the form factor or think it's not "cool" to use CDs anymore.

Third, I think a properly implemented PC based system can sound as good or better than a megabuck CD player for a fraction of the cost since the CD medium do have more demons to deal with.

So, it doesn't awe me a bit that CD player prices are so high. They simply have to be overbuilt to perform as good or better than LP and PC/MAC based systems.

As for myself, I will continue to buy CDs as my main method in building my digital music library to play in my CD-less hifi.