I don't think Ear makes the Acute anymore. They do a dac/transport thing for about $13K. I have the previous version without the digital in. It sounds very good. Detailed enough, yet smooth. You can also fool around with tubes if you like to alter the sound. Other than the digital in, I don't think the last version is any different from the previous, although they changed the dac ship to the newer Wolfson, which has a higher sampling rate. A friend bought one after hearing mine and I really don't think there's any difference, although we didn't A/B them in the same room. It's a solid player at a decent price, especially used.