I was just sitting here at work staring at the Empeg on my desk... The exposed metal... and i got to thinking. What would kick ASS is instead of a Sled for home use...why not have a hard case. One that would fit snuggly around the empeg...it could slide in sled like...and be made of hard plastic. You could use it instead of the soft-case and it would make it look like a seperate stereo component at home. It could have a front to cover the faceplate, and it would definately have to have a rear flap or maybe just holes for the connectors. Plus it would Look BAD ASS instead of looking like a pulled out car stereo on your desk (albeit the sweetest car stereo on earth =). I can sooo picture it. I might do up some sketches later this weekend...or some 3d mockups. I have an OLD Aiwa cassete player with a hard case that wrapped around it that is a perfect example...it even had gaskets to make it water-tight! Weatherproof Empeg...sweeeeet.

||| loren.cox
||| 080000446
||| 12GB blue

HAHAHA! i just got something to back up my request. I just had to people ask me what the hell the Empeg was sitting on my desk...and when they got that it was a car stereo of sorts... the reply was "wow, awesome... they should make it a little nicer, it looks like you just stole it out of the parking lot!" =]

||| loren.cox
||| 080000446
||| 12GB blue

I just had to people ask me what the hell the Empeg was sitting on my desk...and when they got that it was a car stereo of sorts... the reply was "wow, awesome... they should make it a little nicer, it looks like you just stole it out of the parking lot!"

Although I like your idea for an in-home casing (if that idea ever comes to fruition, remember to put rubber feet on it, and cooling holes in the proper places), I don't think the Empeg looks like a stolen radio. You were probably talking to a generation of people who've never owned a pull-out car stereo. It's a shame they don't make them that way any more (since faceplate stereos get stolen anyway, I know this from experience).

When you're with the right crowd, the Empeg's appearance can be self-explanatory. Just yesterday, I showed it to one of our new programmers. My only introduction was "have you seen this yet?" He stared at it for about 3 seconds and then said... "is that an MP3 player for your car?"

This is without reading the label or anything. He just saw the audio cables, the form factor, the lack of a CD insertion slot, and used simple deduction to come to that conclusion.

His next question was "what's its capacity?" Heh. Smart guy.

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Tony Fabris