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What Sonically is the Difference between a $1,500 CD Player and a $10K-$25K One?

I realize opinions may vary, but if I could give an example of two CD players perhaps someone can give me their thoughts on the cost benefits of either one? What would be the difference in your opinion between say a Cambridge Audio Azur 851C CD Player and the Gryphon Scorpio S CD Player? And are the difference truly audible or more technical and rather indiscernible through human hearing?

In general, what makes a CD player (other than build components) 10x more costly than a decently built one other than features?
mrc4u
geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 
A quick recap of the last 40 years

1. First CD players 1983, really crappy sound.
2. Second generation CD players, still really crappy sound. Maybe it’s the CDs.
3. Increase but rate. Still crappy sound.
4. Increase the bit rate some more. Nope, still crappy sound.
5. How about outboard DACs? Still crappy sound.
6. Upsampling, nope. 
7. OK, how about higher bit rates AND higher sampling rates? Nope. 
8. Now all the CDs are super compressed so who cares?

fstein's avatar
fstein
199 posts
 
The sound of money burning. And that high end cd player will depreciate 50-70% in 2 years
clearthink
1,421 posts
 

fstein"The sound of money burning. And that high end cd player will depreciate 50-70% in 2 years"

It is most probably and likely that those purchasing such components do not care at all about depreciation that is not why they acquire the equipment in the first place it’s audio equipment not a financial investment!
roxy54's avatar
roxy54
8,109 posts
 

geoffkait,

I actually enjoy reading posts like yours. It is true of course that digital was pretty terrible for the first number of years, but now that I have been living with a competent transport and non-oversampling DAC for years, I enjoy the great sound (perfect...? NO) and grin at all of the outdated criticisms of digital's deficiencies.

I recently watched a factual piece on youtube about the deficiencies of analog (what?) that was complete with simple enlarged line drawings, some animated of the gross mistracking that cartidges make in record grooves no matter what the cost of the cartridge, because it is simply unavoidable. Yet we continue to talk about the losses in digital transcription caused by sampling rates and jitter.

It is really just choosing what type of losses/distortions that you can live with and find acceptable. I just find it laughable that those with even the finest vinyl rigs think that they are so far above those using digital mediums as a source.

I realize Geoff that you weren't supporting analog per se, but you were singing the same old "digital sucks" song, and that is getting stale.

John 

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