Well, Rob, seeing as how you're not up to the task at the moment, I guess I'll have to fill in.


First of all, is there a dimming lead?

I know that the Mark2 will have the capability of dimming its display. I don't know whether that'll be controllable by a dimmer lead or not. If not, then the control will be in the software. Seems logical that it would have a dimmer lead, though. I think this question might have been answered elsewhere on the BBS, so if anyone wants to jump in and verify this, that'd be nice.


Also, I have a Fuba powered antenna.. Is there a separate antenna power lead (so my antenna only gets power when it's on the FM mode, if I buy an FM module) or is this just integrated into the amp turn-on lead?

Well, the Mark 1 only had an amp turn-on lead, not an antenna lead, and that's what I used to power the Fuba antenna on my VW GTI. It worked fine.


Now, my REAL question -- Does anybody have numerous pictures of the empeg's display?

If you don't mind the download, there's a great movie right here. Note that there are some "dot crawl" artifacts in the video that are caused by either the video equipment or the compression (not sure which). The actual Empeg display is very steady and solid, without those artifacts. Otherwise, the video is a pretty accurate representation of the unit's display. It doesn't show much of the menuing system, but you do get to see some of it.


I'm curious as to how the menu system (I assume there is one) allows you to select tracks.. one at a time, or many, or playlists, or what?

All of the above, and a lot more. It's heirarchical, incredibly flexible, and surprsingly easy to use and understand. You create a "tree" of playlists on the PC, then send those playlists to the Empeg along with the song files. From the Empeg's "Playlists" menu, you can choose to play any branch of that tree. Everything from the main root level all the way down to an individual song. For instance, if you hit the "play" icon at the highest level of the tree, it'll play every song on the Empeg. If you drill down to your "Rush" playlist, it'll play all the Rush songs. If you drill down to your "Moving Pictures" playlist, it'll play just that album. And if you keep drilling down to an individual song, you could specifically choose to play "YYZ".

Now, my example was for playlists organized by artist/album. But you don't have to create the playlists that way. You could, for example, create playlists based on mood (I have a "High Energy" and a "Low Key" playlist), or based on the favorite songs of friends and family members. It's totally up to you.

All of the above can be done either in normal play mode (everything in sequence), or in shuffle play mode (with the chosen playlist and its sub-playlists shuffled like a deck of cards).

You can also, if desired, assign your own PIN numbers to your playlists, and punch the PINs into the remote control instead of drilling down through the menus.

And that's just the playlist functions. There are other ways to get to the music you want. It's possible, with just a couple of simple button-presses on the remote, to perform searches based on artist, song title, album name, genre, or year. And in the same menus where you perform those searches, you can either narrow your search by keying in letters from the numeric pad, or if you wanted, you could use the arrow keys to scroll up and down the list. It sounds complicated when I describe it, but it's actually incredibly easy and simple.


How do the controls work (looks like the MK2 has similar controls as the 1, except with the rotary knob..)?

Well, I think the user interface for the Mark 2 hasn't been finalized yet, so there's no real answer to that question. Based on the way that the Mark 1 works, I'd say that they'll come up with a very good system for selecting stuff that is very easy to understand and use.

But to answer your question more specifically, I'll tell you how the Mark 1 currently works:

When you're in the menu system, the four buttons are the menu navigation keys. The top button goes "up" in the menu tree, the bottom button confirms the current option, and the left/right buttons select and scroll through the various options.

When you're outside the menu system, the top button is pause, the left and right buttons are track selection, and the bottom button enters the menu system. The buttons do double-duty in this mode: Holding the top button turns off the power, and holding the left-right buttons will adjust the volume. That's definitely going to change on the Mark 2, since there will be a real volume knob. Hugo seemed to indicate that holding the left and right buttons would become FF/REW on the Mark 2 units, but beyond that, I'm sure they're still working on the design and haven't finalized it yet.


What kind of displays can you use while playing music, etc etc.

You'll get to see some of that in the video, but here's the current breakdown. You can choose one of four information screens:

1) Track details. Shows song title, Artist, Album, Year, and the elapsed time. Also shows how far along the playlist you are in a [number/number] format. For instance, if there are 500 items in the playlist, and you're on the 20th song, it will have [20 / 500] on the screen next to the elapsed time.

2) Now and Next. This is brand new with version 10 of the software. Shows the current song title, plus the next several songs coming up in the current playlist. Also has elapsed time and the [20 / 500] thing.

3) One-line info. Scrolls the Artist:Song Title information across the bottom of the screen with the elapsed time in the corner. Above the line of text, the remainder of the screen shows the Prolux Visuals.

4) Information off. The full screen shows nothing but the Prolux Visuals.

There are something like 20 different visuals to choose from, and you'll get to see all of those in the video.


How will the controls differ on the new system with the knob? Will the new system have voice activated controls (I seem to recall hearing this).. how would they work? Like, "play ," or what?

That's probably not set in stone yet either. But you will have some basic hard-coded commands available to you like play and pause, and you'll also be able to "voice tag" your playlists, so, much like the PIN function I described above, you can call up a playlist by saying a keyword.


Any idea what the new remote will look like?

Unfortunately, it's going to look just like the current Kenwood credit-card remote. From what I understand, they weren't able to work out a new remote in time for the Mark 2.

Tony Fabris
Empeg #144