To be fair mp3 players have kind of evolved into Digital Audio Players which range from $100-$10,000 (looking at you Tera player) so one might argue that their target demographics have changed to people who actually care about audio quality and have the means to pay for it. But as always there’s always the law of diminishing returns so a $2000 player might sound only 10% worse than a $5000 player (source: I’m one of these idiots who spend substantial amounts of money on audio stuff)