I was already interested in MP3s long before portable players were available. I was converting much of my music collection to MP3 so that I could play them on my computer without swapping out CDs.

When the portable players started to come out (the early Rio units), I wasn't interested because they never had enough storage space. So when I heard about the Empeg, I was clearly the target market. My first MP3 player was the Empeg Mk 1.

Portable players were never really something I was interested in. I alpha tested the Karma and some of the other Rio players, but never really used them seriously beyond the testing. The Karma was the first portable player I touched that had anywhere near the storage space I needed, but at that point my needs were already solved by the Empeg. I didn't do activities (jogging, biking) that would have required a portable player, so those things were never high on my list.

I never owned an iPod for the purpose of playing music. When I finally got an iPod Touch, it was just for the web browsing. And when I got an iPhone, it was so I could do the web browsing without a Wifi network. I *still* don't load my music collection onto my iPhone because they *still* don't have enough storage space! After all these years!