Well, I've been using the empeg for a little bit of time now and I thought I'd post some of my thoughts.
(I haven't had internet for the past two weeks because I'm at college and off campus where the cable has yet to be upgraded)

I've had the empeg in my van for two 2 1/2 hour trips and it is great for that purpose. I can just put my entire CD collection on random and never touch the thing except to skip a track.

On short trips back and forth to school it's great too. I've set up a "driving" playlist that includes really good "road songs" (Deep Purple's "Highway Star", Edgar Winter's "Freeride", Fishbone's "Sunless Saturday", Black Sabbath's "Paranoid", etc..).

The one major gripe I have at this point is this:
I CANNOT SEE THE SCREEN DURING THE DAY!!

I didn't believe the other people on here when they were talking about this, but now I have seen it first hand. It is absolutely impossible to read the screen on an average bright day. I can't even make anything out if I cup my hands over it, and that's not too good while driving anyway. I really can't believe how bad it is. Even today when it was raining outside, when I was stopped on the side of the street I was able to make things out when I cupped my hands over it, but it was still difficult.

This suprised me because the display is quite readable at night. I had no trouble at all, but I still felt the need to turn the dimmer all the way up.

I do not believe that this is an AR issue. This happens when there are no reflections on the outer layer. I just can't see a damned thing on the VFD. Is there anything you guys at empeg can do about this?

With that said, I still think this is a great device, but there are some things that need working out.

(ps- it is not the viewing angle that is messing it up either. My DIN has the radio facing almost right at me at a good height.)

DiGNAN
13653

I do not believe that this is an AR issue

I think it must be a reflection problem. The VFD is much brighter, with better contrast, than regular LCD screens so if you have a problem viewing it in typical daylight conditions then that is almost certainly down to reflected light.

Even the Mk.1, which had an anti-reflection coating, was wiped out by direct sunlight - but so were any other displays in the vehicle under those conditions. I've never experienced a problem as bad as you describe, but the position of the stereo in the Merc probably helps, and a typical day here isn't all that bright.

Perhaps part of the problem is that often you don't really notice that the display on your CD or tape player is wiped out in the sunlight, because you don't need to look at it very much. Usually people that have had a problem with visibility on the empeg, and who also have a second head unit, have noticed that the display on that head is also invisible at the time.

Hopefully future AR coated screens will help a lot.

Rob

Is it possible that your brightness setting is down? If not, one solution would be to tint your car - I had problems w/ my old headunit not being visible (alpine cd player), and my car gets pretty hot during the day anyways (I live in Florida..) so I opted to tint my car.. Makes the empeg quite visible during bright days...
-mark

MK2: 36gb
Tivo 90gb
Computer: 120gb disk space
...I think drive manufactureres love me!

I finally got a chance to wire my (red) Empeg up on my boat today. It went in a spot previously occupied by an amber-display Kenwood FM/cassette (601?). It was not an unusually sunny day by Seattle standards (choke!), but when the sun hit the boat I (personally) remarked to myself how poorly the Empeg display fared in comparison to the Kenwood it displaced. I found myself having to hold a hat in front of the Empeg to shade the display, something I hadn't had to do in 4-5 years with the Kenwood.

I don't think I was imagining anything. In fact, I'm posting here after coming home and doing a search on "dimmer" -- thought perhaps that I was doing something wrong.

I am *not* ready to tint the ports on my sailboat! However, I expect that I will at some point hook up a laptop on the boat to run nav software (not like I'm heading to the south seas, I just love the stuff!), so perhaps I can also run Emplode on the laptop and use that to run the Empeg on sunny days.

Seriously, it's a great unit. Brighter would be better.

Jim

I do not believe that this is an AR issue. This happens when there are no reflections on the outer layer.

Hmm. I don't know for sure, but my Mark1 is fully readable during the day, and even in most cases where the sun shines directly on it. Remember that reflections always come from all directions at all times.

Also, definitely check what Di said: Look at your dimmer settings. Perhaps it's just set to less than full brightness? If that's the case, make sure to let us know because it might be the problem some other folks are having with its readability.

___________
Tony Fabris

I think you missed the point - the Mk.2 does not _currently_ have an anti-reflection coating. The next batch of screens will have this, and as an existing owner you'll be able to get one at a very preferential price.

Rob

What colour display do you have? The order of brightness is green, blue, amber, red - this is just how close the filter is to the emitted spectrum from the VFD. There's not a lot we can do about this, as the VFDs only come in one colour. If, say, you have an amber display, switching to a green does increase daytime readability at the expense of not matching the dashboard colour.

Hugo

To back up what Hugo said, I have a green screen that is barely seen in direct sunlight but still seen. Every other time it is good to see. And yes, the AR coating would help a lot becuase my light colored interior puts a lot of reflection on the screen. I would think this effect is twice as bad in a boat environment.

Alex Lear

I have both red and green screens. The red is unreadable in almost all lighting conditions (sunlight). I can read it indoors OK, but that's it.

My green screen, on the other hand is readable even in direct sunlight. I live in South Florida (Fort Lauderdale), and I get WAY more than my fair share of sun here. The only time I haven't been able to read my green display is when the sun was coming in through the front windshield, blinding me, and reflecting off the white box I had in the passenger seat onto the display. (can anyone say run-on?)

Anyways, I can definitely say green is the way to go. I wanted red to match my interior, but after reading all the posts on visibility here, I also purchased the green screen, just in case red was too dim.

Hopefully the AR coating will make this even better.

-Trevor

-----
Mk 2, Green 12GB 080000349

We're starting to suspect that there's something wrong with DiGNAN's player, as from his descriptions (eg: at night he has to turn it up the whole way to look decent - turn it up the whole way and the car is lit up at night with mine...).

I think Rob's looking into this.

Hugo

my player is impossible to read as well in mild sun light, but i think it has to do with the angle because the people in the back seat can see it. Some sort of solution would be nice though. I will still have to mess with the brightness. It looks awesome at night though.

I've been anxious to test my display in bright sunlight and i got the chance this morning (it's been foggy for days). I can report that in direct sunlight it was still readable. Not easily, but i could still makeout the brighter pixels with little effort. This is on a Blue Mk2 with the brightness at a little over half way up. Here's a shot of my viewing angle for reference.

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

I'm waiting to hear back from DiGNAN at the moment - ideally I'd look to hook him up with someone in his area to compare screens. It really sounds like there's a fault with his player, it's green and he can barely read it during the day under interior lighting. The green screen practically blinds me!

Rob

This is on a Blue Mk2 with the brightness at a little over half way up

You'd definitely need to turn the brightness all the way up to read the display in direct bright sunlight. Doing so won't cause any burn problems with the VFD, as long as you don't leave it on a static image for days at a time.

I use the player (in the car) on 100% during the day and 80% at night. I rarely experience any kind of viewing problem (on either amber or green, depending which player I'm using - going to change the amber press player to blue soon though, as it looks better in photographs).

Rob