24bit CD Players, What's the deal? Options

[mccarthyk]

CD players seem pretty outdated nowadays. I even replaced my laptop's CD drive for an SSD - because I download nearly all of my music online, and when I want to rip a CD I just plug a drive into my eSATA port. But I was looking for a CD drive to complete my new stereo setup - which I don't think I am even going to get because I have a turntable for my vinyls and my laptop for everything else...

However, I found that there are a lot of 24bit CD players on ebay that sell for 2 to 5 thousand dollars! As far as I was aware CDs are physically 16bit storage devices. Am I wrong? Are CDs actually 24 bit, or are these multi thousand dollar CD players just complete gimickes?

[Wombat]

The Cirrus CS 3308-3318 provides a ready analog-domain solution for a music player volume control:
http://www.cirrus.com/en/products/volume_controls.html

Why use another chip when recent DACs have a build in digital volume control?
http://hifiduino.wordpress.com/2012/01/31/...er-than-analog/

[Arnold B. Kruege...]

The Cirrus CS 3308-3318 provides a ready analog-domain solution for a music player volume control:
http://www.cirrus.com/en/products/volume_controls.html

Why use another chip when recent DACs have a build in digital volume control?
http://hifiduino.wordpress.com/2012/01/31/...er-than-analog/

The solution I mentioned is a pure analog domain solution from the standpoint of the audio signal.

For example the CS 3318 handles 8 channels with 127 dB dynamic range and is particularly cost effective in AVRs. You can match its performance with a digital domain solution but not for anything like the price per channel. It is commonly used in AVRs following DAC chips with far more humble specs (e.g 100 dB or less) for dynamic range, while providing a cost-effective overall system with equal or better dynamic at low listening levels as compared to all-digital solutions.

It seems a bit backward but current production AVRs generally implement the volume control and most signal switching in the analog domain, while running the DSP at levels close to FS.