First off, I have a question for all the people with like 36GB of harddrive... how do you fill it all up? I find it impossible... I currently have a little over 200 songs in my collection. To be honest 10 GB is too much... now to my second question.. Is it possible to like downgrade harddrive? Lets say I have a 20GB Harddrive, can I sell that and buy like a 5 GB HD or something? What would the probable price be for a 20 GB HD and a 5 GB HD? Thanks!

People who own the Empeg are big time audiophiles and tend to have hundreds of CDs, so filling them - especially with a high bitrate - is easy. I'm nowhere near filling my 60GB (I'm only at 14) but at least the space is there if I need it.

As for downgrading, yes you can do that in the same way you would replace any drive on the Empeg. I'd check ebay's completed items search for the current drive prices.

Edit: If 10GB is too small, give your Empeg to me and I'll swap you a CD Changer for it

do you own cds?
i find that ripping my cd collection is a great way to fill it up.

and no, there shouldnt be any problem downgrading in size. but, im sure you will regret it later

I have not bought a CD in the last 5 years... dont tell anyone
:-x, eheh, ya I probably will not downgrade it, just in case, my colleciton will grow...

To be honest 10 GB is too much...

200 songs !! .. that's a waste of an Empeg

Do you bother with playlists ?

Well I have 200 songs on my computer, but when I get an Empeg I will def be downloading more songs to play... so it will prob hit 500, but that is still much less than 20GB

Oh, I wouldn't mention downloading songs here - get ready to be flamed!

Edit: Your safe if your legal!

Philip I do not want a CD Changer, I am swaping a CD changer for an Empeg :-D. There are two main reasons I swaped, the CD changer was a HASSLE due to the fact that it kept SKIPPING! And that the Empeg seems to have a user friendly interface that easily uses playlists. Also the fact that I no longer need to burn CDs :-p

Oh, sorry if I download songs, I am just a poor student :-[

Well, there are actually legal sources to download tracks from these days. Although I imagine that's not what he's talking about.

I wonder what the statistics surrounding free downloaders are like. I'm sure there are obsessives who've downloaded 50GB of tracks and own none of it. There are others who have 50GB and have downloaded 0.5% of it. But I wonder if it might not be that most of the people have some measly number of tracks that they've downloaded and that's it, and that's all they're interested in. They just don't want to buy ``Now That's What I Call Crappy Pop Music MCLVXIII''.

I know so many people who claim they like music but then never really listen to anything except for maybe three songs plus the four songs they're playing on the radio this week. I think that a lot of people just like music as background, but wouldn't really mind much if it wasn't there anymore. (Unfortunately, I barely get a chance to listen to music as an exclusive activity anymore, but it's not intended as background.)

Hopefully, Eamonj25, you'll discover that the empeg has really good sound quality, and that the stuff you download off the internet doesn't sound very good because it's ripped poorly. Maybe that might get you interested in actually ripping your own CD collection so you can control the quality. A significant number of empeg owners have even ripped their entire collections a second time at a higher bit rate because the empeg's sound quality was so good that they wanted to get the best possible results.

on the 'crappy rips from p2p networks' note
http://lockmist.com/uber/

peerweb.org has a whole list of uberstandard music links. not much that interests me, but thought id note it.

200? That is all the music you like in this world? Surely you can find more than that, even limiting yourself to one or two genres? Hell, I can crack 200 with my Pink Floyd collection alone, and thats without resorting to all my bootlegs.

I like that pgrzelak, you don't even have to say anything, just show up in the thread; here we have exhibit A

I have to get this out of the way...

Oh, sorry if I download songs, I am just a poor student :-[

That's a cop out. Be accountable for what you do. If you download music, you're violating copyright. Don't try to excuse it by saying "Oh, poor me, I don't have money to buy it." You don't get to go to the store and get the big screen TV if you don't have the money, either. Either say "Yes, I download music; Blow me if you don't like it" or "I don't download music as I feel it is morally corrupt".

I'm not saying I approve of or disapprove of downloading music. I've just had enough of the BS excuse that somehow you deserve music whether or not you can actually afford it, all the while washing your hands of guilt with the "starving student" spiel.

I am just a poor student :-[

How are you going to afford an empeg then? If you can't afford CDs then you definately can't afford one of these.

on the 'crappy rips from p2p networks' note
http://lockmist.com/uber/

Hey, that's pretty cool. That's a more stringent set of standards than I set for ripping my own albums.

Of course, that page is a very clear example of just how much trouble it is to make really perfect MP3 files, and therefore why most of the stuff on the P2P networks is crap...

ouch!

You know, I don't mean to be miserable about it, but "poor student" has become the sob story of the internet.

"I need to crack the full commercial version of Maya because I'm a starving student"

"I need to download 200GB of music because I'm a starving student"

Etc. etc.

I'm not saying "don't download music". I'm just saying be honest with yourself (and others) about what you do. If you don't have a problem downloading music, just say so. If you do have a problem with it, say so. But don't make excuses either way. We all need to be personally accountable for your actions.

I don't feel at all bad about the non-owned music that may or may not reside on certain machines within my sphere of influence. I just take a quick look at the wall of several thousand CD's at $15-$18 a pop and I feel much, much better. That being said, my own rips are by far the best quality ones I have and I've bought bands I never would have even heard of w/o downloading.

My advice, don't downgrade your drive, you'll fill it soon enough. You'll have your empeg long after many portable players have come and gone. Unless of course you really, really need the cash.

-Zeke

I am not saying that I should be allowed to download music because I am a "poor student" I was just stating facts there... And I do not really care if you guys think downloading music is not "right". And I am able to afford an empeg, because I sold the CD changer that came with the car... finally, the collection of 200 songs was compiled within a One year period (ever since got new computer) I am sure it will increase but I doubt it will increase to 36 GB of music...

I was also wondering about the quality of ripped music, the songs I usually download are at 128 quality or higher... what is the quality of Songs ripped directly from CDs? btw please no flames.. Thanks!

The quality of songs ripped from CDs is entirely dependant on the software, hardware and settings you use when you rip it. The three main things that effect the quality are:

- the accuracy of the rip (exactly how close what is read from the CD is to what it should be)
- the quality of your MP3 encoder (some of them aren't as good as others)
- the bit rate you choose to encode the MP3 at (most people who are after decent quality would want at least a 192k bitrate)

One thing to be aware of, MP3s that sound fine played through a typical sound card in a PC can sound crap once you play them with a decent bit of kit like the empeg.

Most people with a half-decent install and pair of ears will be able to hear artifacts in 128kbits/sec. Very few of those people will be able to hear artifacts in 192kbits/sec, and I haven't heard anyone (1) claim to hear artifacts in 256kbits/sec. (All CBR).

Of course with 36GB to play with and only 200 tracks, you could just use .wav files! (Although you'd have to edit all the tags in Emplode by hand...ugh.)

(1) Here on this BBS anyway. Some mad people on some snobby audiophile sites may believe that they can tell the difference between 256kbits/sec and 320kbits/sec, but these are often the same people who argue about such important things such as, "Which is the best $25000 CD player?". (the answer to which is _obviously_, "The $100 CD player sittting on top of 249 hundred dollar bills",) and other such inane discussions. I thus disregard such opinions.

Eamon,

Good work on eliciting a reaction from all of the members!!!!

FWIW..i started with 10GB....ripped all of my CD's at 64 kps in WMA..thought it was great having all this music in one source..till i did an A/B test against the original CD...ugh...

Then re-ripped everything at 128kps WMA...OMG..all my harddrive space was gone!!!

Added another 10GB (thanks again, Paul!)...filled that up!

Swapped out a 10er for a 20er (Paul..thanks again!) and now have 30GB....

so now i can rip all of my 'B' list CD's and archive them on the Empeg....

I tried 196ish WMA but the Empeg had problems reading them (lots of pops and other artifacts)

I drive a Miata (My It's A Tiny Automobile) which is a reference for road noise....point being that I am fine with my old 128 rips but will do any additional at 160ish.

And finally..storage space is like ammunition and fuel...you can never have too much of it!

Good luck with your new toy!

Ed

Digression: speaking of the Miata, how is your noise problem doing?

Well...as we discussed...it does creep in now and then and all i have to do is PUSH in the upper left hand corner of the Empeg and it scurrys away!

I am loathe to undo the install so long as i can push the noise away!

plus too damn cold to do anything outside!

Hi there!

I'll just weigh in with a point that (surprisingly) hasn't been mentioned here. The great thing about having all that space is that you get to put all of your collection on it, not just the 'best of the best' stuff. That might sound obvious, but the way to think about the empeg is not in terms of 'I've got a hundred hours of play time', but 'what if I want to hear that particular song?' With its powerful search facility and heirarchial playlists, it's all at your fingertips.

One of the best experiences I had with my empeg was when a friend got in the car and asked what that blue pulsing light was (I had the thing on standby). I showed her the basics and then said "pick a song from the eighties". "Echo Beach" she said, so I punched up the 'select by song', typed 3246, got Echo Beach, queued it, started playing. "Ooooh," Susan says. "What about 'Money For Nothing'?"

We kept that up for the entire trip home!

Enjoy,

Paul

P.S. and that was my 'modern' playlist, which is not my largest playlist...

Greetings!

Another variation of this is to have all of the music on the player and allow it to randomize. Granted, all of the current favorites are there, but you occasionally find great pieces from your music library that you may not have heard for a long time. It is a great way to rediscover the music you already have.

And with a power supply and come RCA's you could take that game right into Susan's house. "Do you have any Barry White?"