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

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.

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!

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

Pertaining largely to the question of who would buy such a cd player, read "The Millionaire Next Door"; most persons with net worth wealth (not just high income coupled with high expenses and low net worth) would never dream of spending so much on electronics. There are exceptions, but typically the truly wealthy live very conservatively. That would put the majority of our systems, and even many individual components, beyond what they would spend.

In some ways, I'm sure there are audio junkies who can be compared to the person living in an apartment, who has no savings or retirement plan, yet is driving on lease an expensive automobile. The appearance of wealth, without wealth. So, many audiophiles probably have high end systems but are not net worth wealthy. They are the one's more likely to buy the $20,000 player. High income coupled with a high cash burn rate.

I'm sure there is a discernable difference in sound between a 4k and 20k player, but net worth millionaires as a group wouldn't care - they would state that even a 4k player is too expensive for what is obtained from it. It's something they don't need. It's one of the reasons they became wealthy.