What makes a $20,000 cd player cost 20,000?

Douglas_schroeder,

You hit it right on the head, most people do not realize it, but it is true, the truly wealthy people like to hold on to their money, especially old money wealthy, like you said, it's how they stay rich. The posers are the ones buying beyond their means, to have the appearance.

the fact that they know somone will be dumb enough to buy it.

The market they are trying to hit is the "new is always better and i gotta have the best" market. They wont sell many, but with that price tag they wont need to.

think of it like this, why manufacturer 200CDp's and ship them all for 100 bucks each, if you can just sell 1 CDP for 20k and save on all the hassle?

Slappy, you've just restated the story of the $500 apple! :)

What i get from this discusssion is that having a decent player modded with top quality parts for what? $350-1000 should come close to anything out there. I guess they could be using all gold wiring and diamonds for the laser, Ha!

Ausjoe brings up an interesting thought; modded cd players. I at one time tried the Ah! Njoe Tjoeb 4000 (highly modded Marantz turned into tube cd player) and thought it very nifty. I had read much about it, and about the fact that it was supposed to outperform $3k units.
I found a stock Rega Planet 2000 to be superior, to my ears. It seemed that the modding of the Ah! did not produce such a superior player. Sometimes it seems all the modding is similar to taking an economical car, such as a Honda CRX, and putting $15,000 of mods on it. It may stand out, but it's not truly a classy car (I'll add IMHO, lest I offend someone who feels such mods make a car classy).
Sometimes I wonder if the modded cd players, amps, etc. get noticed, but a quality, higher priced production unit will produce a more pleasing presentation. With some frustration, I've learned the only way to truly know is to purchase the contender and compare it side by side to the reigning champ.
However, having gone through the modded test once and ending up with a stock player, I'm in no hurry to go that route again. I'd probably look to a higher level of stock player which has garnished positive reviews from professional reviewers as well as enthusiasts.