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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.
jeff_jones
cytocycle
1,034 posts
 
Tvad: I agree that proprietary parts aren't manufactured but the processor you see in a high end player this year you might see in a lower end player next year.. Most of the high end products spend their money building multiple powersupplies and trying to isolate the digital from the analog ...
Economy of scale would also dictate that the high end players are hand assembled due to the limited quantity sold (wouldn't make sense to tool up a factory to kick out 100-500 units..)
tvad
9,467 posts
 
Yup...on all accounts.
readster
241 posts
 
05-25-05: Tgrisham
Incredibly wealthy people who don't mind spending that much money on one component of their system!

And then have to brag about it, don't forget that.
lkdog
403 posts
 
Boa2-

Your sentiments are well appreciated.
The daily needless loss of human life going on in the world right now is of much more import than all of our crazy perseverating over digital front ends.

Maybe we do this at times as a harmless escape from the realities of the world. There are certainly worse things we could be doing and I am not one to feel guilty over these small enjoyments-but I did not want your comments to go unacknowledged.

Now back to mindless perseverating everybody!
gregm
3,021 posts
 
Boa & Lkdog are the most clearsghted of us, of course. Returning to the senseless entertainment:)

What makes the price of a 20k player? Here's one calculation method:
Per UNIT Total: (direct cost+ indirect cost + financial cost)=
$ 3,5-5k for SMALL company
$ <2,2 for LARGE company
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