the judges would have no way of knowing if the MP3s you're playing are re-EQ'd or anything.

That's the crux of the issue. For those not familiar with IASCA judging procedures, you get one chance to set your stereo up as far as gains, loudness, bass/treble, EQ settings, etc. Then the judge takes over and the only things he is allowed to change are the volume and the power controls. The sound quality is judged across dozens of different tracks on the competition disk, so that a car might sound good on a bass-heavy track, and not so good on a track requiring good mid-range and treble response If a competitor could re-master the disk on a track by track basis, he could compensate for deficiencies in his basic system.

Now in my mind, there is a cruical difference between actually re-mastering the disk as opposed to playing an exact copy of that disk (in .wav format) with different equalizations on each track, provided that those equalizations are provided by the competitor's player and not by an external recording studio. In the first case, he is showcasing the versatility and power of his car stereo. In the second case, he is very decidedly "unleveling" the playing field.

Another way of looking at it is like this: there are CD players that allow users to store more than one EQ setting. Suppose a manufacturer took it one small step further, and let you pre-assign those EQ settings to different tracks. All it would require would be a bit of flash ROM to save the settings for each CD. IASCA would have no problems with that, because you would be playing the official CD and the capability of your CD player would optimize the playback -- which is the whole point of the competition. So perhaps it comes down to just finding a way to prove to the judge that the original data on the CD has not been compromised when it is stored in the empeg.

Unfortunately, I don't think there is a way to do that.

tanstaafl.

"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"