Wich high end CD palyer?

Mark-ups on Audio equipment are NOT all that high. That is crap propogated by cheapskates who refuse to buy new equipment or to pay Retail or anything close to it based on their erroneous assumption that mark-ups are "high".
You pay much higher relative prices on the clothing you wear and the food you eat every day.

Ccereda,

I'm surprised that if you can afford -- not just pay for -- a $14K CD player you don't just fly to NYC and buy whatever you want. Why limit yourself to european avaiability? I assume you're independently wealthy with no need to work, so taking the time to visit the Manhatten showrooms to listen would be the best way to go.

db

markups in general are extremely high. rule of thumb is the production cost is about 20% of the retail cost. a dealer marks up a product 100% from their wholesale cost. when they advertise a 20-50% off sale, there is still a good profit to be made. cables are the biggest markup of all. when you add up the cost of materials and production (actual labor involved), the average high end cable that sells for over $1000 has less than $50 worth of material and probably less than that for labor. it's all markup to make people think they are getting some kind of great product because it costs more. using your food and clothing analogy only proves me right. by the way, i sold audio and video equipment for a few years, so i know where my numbers come from.

To Stvncar: You're right of course. 40k, that's a lot of live concerts. By the way, what are Sinatra tickets going for these days?

ccereda:

I have two digital sources that I enjoy very much:
Burmester 001
CEC TL1X transport/Chord DAC64

I should really sell one or the other, but can't decide which! I was never truly happy with digital until I found these two.
Jim