I'd agree with that, Dave.
However, today's mid-priced players may sound as good compared to one of the Sony players above in stock form, but when the latter are judiciously modified, and the sonic restriction of aging out-of-spec capacitors removed (amongst other internal component upgrades carried out), it becomes a whole different ball game, and in my experience modern players are comprehensively outperformed (simply because the fundamental 'raw ingredients' are generally of a much higher standard in the best vintage players), thus one ends up with a genuine hi-end machine 'on the cheap', able to rival the very best.
It's all about starting off with the highest quality ingredients.... Marrying the best vintage players with the best new technology in terms of modern components = having the best of BOTH worlds! Personally, as a perfectionist, I hate compromises
90% of today's CD players aren't engineered to last, or even built with the same 'cost no object' design principles, as were largely the vintage Sonys mentioned above during the heyday of CD, when manufacturers strove for perfection and had a customer base willing to pay for the privilege of owning the best; in fact quite the opposite, they are 'built to a price' under the premise that the heyday of CD is long since gone and customers nowadays (out with of the most devoted) are satisfied with something adequate rather than exceptional, mainly perhaps because they've never experienced 'exceptional' to appreciate it.
My advice for people, as far as digital goes these days, is to forget all about CDPs and go the route of computer streaming with a high quality DAC, unless you have a huge CD collection, want to hear it at its best, and don't have the time or inclination to rip them all to a hard drive.
In that case, either fork out at least £8-10k on a modern 'hi-end' player (yes it costs that much to do it right with a commercial product these days), which has genuinely been designed to get the best out of the CD format (Esoteric players come to mind in that respect), or for maximum SPPV, go the vintage/modification route and get the same results (or better) for a fraction of the cost.
*That* is the way to do it, if you love digital audio and want to hear it at its best!
Marco.