As a person who has had been playing cello for close to 8 years, I find that any of the electric versions just don't capture richness of the instrument. IMO the best option is to go acoustic and then by a set of pizo pickups that attach to the bridge and/or a special microphone that attaches to the tail piece. Another thing is that I beleive most of the electrics just have a pizeo attached to the bridge, so basicly you can cover more gorund if you buy an acoustic with a bridge pickup. Another perk about buying a traditional cello is that they hold thier value extremely well. When I went to trade in 3/4 size one up to a full size five years ago we got about 90% of the money back on a trade in. If you buy an electric one I can pretty much guarentee that once its out of the case you've lost 1/5 of the value right there.