E.A.R. Acute Reliability

I have had mine for just shy of 1 year. No issues
whatsoever. I will admit though, nothing about the
build quality does inspire confidence. It's an Arcam
rebuilt by Tim D..

That said, it makes me feel alot smarter after I push
play. Sound quality is definitely doing it for me. The
sound is doing/or not doing something very right. It
just gets out of the way , and allows me to enjoy.
When I put a Stealth Indra from the Acute> my preamp,
all I can say is wow!
So I would feed it a good neutral IC. Funny, the Modright
is one of very few that also peak my interest. The other,
Metronome. FWIW, my last player was Capitole 2. I liked
it, but do not look back. I have had too many system changes since the Cap 2 left, so please dont ask for
a direct comparison. I hope this helps, try and get an
audition on one. I think Music Direct is a dealer as well.

Hello. I've had my Acute for 4 months and my friend has had his for about 2 months. Both of us noticed that when you push the volume up OR down on the remote control it keeps going after you let go. Not too serious when decreasing volume, but can be VERY bad when increasing vol. Maybe 3 times out of 10. Usually when holding remote on an angle. When pointing directly at the unit, it is ok.
Since doing that, I haven't really had an issue-but to me, this is unacceptable for a $6,000 cd player. If it didn't sound so damn good, I would return it...

Thank you all very much for your comments. After considerable thought, I have decided to go with Dan Wright's Modwright 9100ES with tube rectifier power supply. Dan has been very helpful and informative in his prompt responses to my emails.

I am sure that the EAR Acute sounds great, but I have too many doubts about its build quality/reliability. Having suffered through three transport failures in the past, the Modwright is more within my comfort zone. Among other things, Dan Wright is located in Washington state and I live in Vancouver, BC.

the EAR would be the best between the two.

Robert Levi gave the EAR Acute an absolutely rave review in Positive Feedback. He subsequently did a follow-up review of the ModWright 9100ES with tube rectifier power supply and absolutely raved about it as well. Comparing it to the Acute, he observed that "used through a preamp there is no significant difference". My home system requires me to run my CD player through my ML 380S.

Tim de Paravicini is unquestionably a brilliant engineer, but I have heard some negative comments about his approach to customer service. His US distributor, OTOH, is supposed to be a terrific guy. Dan Wright is a great person to deal with and everything that I have read about him has been universally positive.

I purchased one of Dan's CES 2008 demo units which will be shipped to me directly from Las Vegas when the show is over. I can hardly wait.

And the remote for the Sony doesn't suck.