Sean: The E624 is the same basic player as the X-Ray and the A3 Musical Fidelity players, in a different package. It is a nice sounding player, but some owners have told me that it lacks bass. I thought so too when I listened to it, but may have been influenced by those opinions at the time (I was relatively new to the digital format). Also interesting is that the three players mentioned all sound different, though electronicaly they may be almost identical. I assume that the varied chassis and cosmetics must account for the different sonic signatures. It makes me want to play around with chassis and cabinet damping on my old CAL.