E.A.R. Acute Reliability

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.

this is an ad for modded sonys

Dan Meinwald, the US importer of EAR products, has responded every time I contacted him before and after my purchase of the Acute. Really excellent communication and service.

One peculiar thing, absolutely no owners manual or instruction sheet comes with the Acute. I contacted Tim de P and he mentioned that he was thinking about producing one but not sure.

Airfla,
If you're thinking about tube rolling, the USA white label Amperex 7308 are excellent as are the 1960s Seimens CCa. Both enhance the performance of the Acute dramatically over the provided stock tubes although they aren't BAD. But they should be changed if you want to fully realize the potential of the Acute. Just my opinion of course but I think there's a good chance that you'll agree :~).