..at www2.empeg.com/mark2.

This is rendered with textures and a more appropriate colour scheme. The final finish isn't fixed, and won't be until we've seen some production prototypes.

Unfortunately there seems to be a bug with the latest version of SolidWorks, which has caused some of the rounded edges to be rendered faceted - but as you can see from the SLA model, these will actually be smooth.

So.. comments?

Rob

Rob Shoots! He Scores!! The crowd goes WILD!!!

A winner IMHO.

Seconded... =)

Looks as good as I imagined it would... =)

Jazz
(List 112, S/N 00030, 4 gig blue)

Looks good to me!

Term

I stand corrected...I like it A LOT! I can't wait to get one. As a side note Rob, it's been about 2 weeks since I registered and I haven't recieved a number yet. I just want to make sure I get on the list! Thanks for making such a cool product.

Two words:

Suh-wheet.

How'd you get that wonderful motion-blurred pic of the display? That's the best representation of the display I've seen in a rendering. Anyone who wonders what the display looks like "in person" should refer to that picture.

You've said that the imprint text on the face might change. If it does, my first suggestion is to drop the word "Compressed". Not necessary, and besides, you're going to fix it so we can play .WAV files, right?

Tony Fabris
Empeg #144

Thanks Rob! I'm all set. I wasn't aware that the top of the "e" in the original drawing was the top of the screen. I was confused.

But this looks great. Is that the final button color? I don't mean to say that you should change it, I just want to know. I really like the black face-plate bolts. It's better than the glaring silver.

Well anyway, I like it! Good job!

Looks MUCH nicer then the rinky dink picture used before:) it actually looks like cute now:)
-mark

...proud to have one of the first Mark I units

I love it. If I were going to make one suggestion, it would be to drop the text ("compressed...audio") altogether, although leaving a small Empeg logo works just fine. In my mind, the text detract from the elegant simplicity, but that may just be me.

Corby
SN#320,6-Gig Blue

I've looked closely at the big rendering, and I have two small questions.

1) Do you intend for the shade and texture of black to be pretty close to the current shade and texture of the handle on the Mark 1? The handle on my Mark 1 exactly matches the texture and color of the car's bezel around the radio location. Even in direct sunlight under close inspection. From the rendering, that looks like what you're planning, I just wondered if it really was.

2) How tall is the "knob" going to be? Will it be raised enough to grab its sides like a real knob? Or is it like the alpha-dial on the old Roland Juno synthesizers, where it's flat and flush with the unit and you turn it by rubbing your finger along its face?

Tony Fabris
Empeg #144

i didn't dig it that much. I hope it looks better in person.

I guess i like the spartan appearance.

In particular. I am not super hot about the shape of the buttons to the left.

Empeg Kicks Ass
S/N 00203
http://www.iretro.com

The display is taken from a digital photo of a real empeg, which has been extremely well processed by JB Design and integrated into the rendering. I've done that job myself many times, and I've never got results as good as they've managed. Then again, that's what they do!

The wording was chosen by JB - I think it's very unlikely we'll use the word "compressed". Originally we were just going to go for "empeg car" in the empeg font, but I have to say that it looked a bit naff. Possibly something like "advanced digital audio" or "digital audio jukebox" might work.

Rob

I like "advanced digital audio" personally - jukebox sounds too much like bragging - i would rather have the empeg speak for itself..
-mark

...proud to have one of the first Mark I units

Luddite.

Tony Fabris
Empeg #144

That probably isn't the final choice of button colour. When the moulds are finished we'll have to run a few different plastics through and see what looks good in reality.

Hugo found a fantastic silver colour which looks really nice on a head unit from another manufacturer, but metallic finished plastic is difficult to achieve and expensive in short runs so we're not sure if this is an option yet.

Rob

That was our original line of thought as well. The designers, however, are very emphatic that the text should be in there, and they have a great deal of experience in (tasteful) product design. They've experimented with several alternatives. We have a meeting with them soon to discuss such things, so they can make their case then.

Rob

Seconded. But I think the word "Jukebox" is being considered only because "digital audio" is used too generically these days. Someone reading the front panel would still mistake it for a plain old CD player based on that text.

Anyone have any better ideas?

- You can't say "Mp3" because it's going to play other formats.
- "Compressed" is mostly accurate, but I didn't like it.
- "Jukebox" is starting to grow on me, but I've never associated that term with the Empeg before.
- Rob said that just the "Empeg Car" logo by itself didn't look that great (although that would probably be my preference, especially if you could spring for two-color, with the word "Car" in blue).

How about "High capacity digital audio player"? Nah, too wordy for the front panel, and still not descriptive enough.

Damn, this is a tough one. I dunno, "Jukebox" is growing on me even more. What other term better describes its function?

Tony Fabris
Empeg #144

1) The Mark 2 will have more texture than the Mark 1 handle - I think the high res version of the rendering shows this up quite well. The anodising will also be of better quality (we by no means cut corners with the Mk.1 handle, but the company that anodised it didn't do a very good job).

2) In the words of Grandpa Simpson, a little from column A and a little from column B. You can grab it, just about, but it's designed to be spun around using the knobley bits. It works really well, and has a positive satisfying feel to it.

Rob

...knobley bits...

Is that a technical term?

Tony Fabris
Empeg #144

Damn, we're going real time and I want to get to bed :-)

I never much liked the word "Jukebox" in association with the car player, but it is something that enables just about anyone to instantly understand what the product does. If anyone comes up with something we really like then we'll go with it, then again we may drop the wording altogether.

I don't think a two colour print would look too great - it would be very hard to match with all of the different colour panels it may be printed onto. In any case it wouldn't comply with our corporate style guide (yep, we actually have one! But it's kind of flexible) :-)

Rob

> Is that a technical term?

It is where I come from.

Rob

One of the things I like about the empeg is that it's a bit mysterious... Jukebox gives it away too much; so what if someone mistakes it for a regular cd-player? So much the better; they wouldn't mistake it when they heard techno followed by pop followed by hip-hop followed by 80's all within 15 minutes:)
-mark

...proud to have one of the first Mark I units

OK, I take back my Fisher Price comment ... but I'm still not 100% on the wing shape. Would prefer something more 'conventional'.

J.

juke·box (jkbks) n.
A coin-operated phonograph, equipped with push buttons for the selection of records. From juke (qv)

... which leads us to ...

juke (jk) Southeastern U.S. n.
A roadside drinking establishment that offers inexpensive drinks, food, and music for dancing and often doubles as a brothel.

I can see where this is going!

How about playing on the random access viewpoint:

RAMS - random access music system
RADA - random access digital audio

J.

I like the look of the new player a lot, but I do have a couple of suggestions:

1. I don't really think the silkscreened text is necessary at all; the logo shows up on boot, and it seems to me that having that text there all the time will just be a distraction from the actual display...

2. I think black buttons would work very well; the stark contrast between the black faceplate and any light-colored buttons just feels jarring to my eyes...

One of the things I really like about my Mk. 1 is that, if you look in the car window, you can't tell there's anything in that spot of my dashboard unless you look really, really carefully (I've fooled myself into thinking the poor thing was stolen a few times because of this). I like that a lot, and I'm hoping the Mk. 2 blends in in similar fashion...

-Dan


-----
Daniel M. Zimmerman
Caltech Computer Science
dmz@its.caltech.edu

OK, let me chip in my $0.02 worth on the wording, after reading all the other subthreads.

Here's what _I_ would do, and then (Rob, settle down), I'll explain why.

Digital Audio (Empeg Logo) Mark II

Now... why would I put in Mark II? Especially when that's not its official name?

I say, MAKE it the official name. Why? First off, it SOUNDS cool as hell. "Yeah, man, I bought one of those Mark II's from Empeg, they hella rock", or whatever punk kids are saying these days *G*...

Secondly, it signifies by its name that this is second-generation gear. There's a psychological advantage to something SOUNDING like it has a lot of testing behind it (even if there were only 500 or so Mark-I units sold) WE all know its had tons of testing -- we did it.. but to the average consumer, Empeg, the company, is an unknown. You're not Sony, or Kenwood, or Pioneer, or anyone they've heard of before. Signifying that "yeah, this is our second generation gear" adds a little psychological weight to the purchase decision.

Thirdly, it may encourage the owner to find out "What was the MarkI?", in which case, if they bought it just "to buy a car stereo" (because I think the target audience on this unit is closer to retail than the geeks like us who bought MkI's), then they may realize the OTHER things that go on behind the scenes, software development, add-ons, hacks people are doing, etc.... point being that if they investigate the MkI, they'll have "one more way" of learning about the other cool stuff people are doing with Empeg's, etc.

And lastly, it's a silent tip of the hat to all us MkI owners who bitched, praised, whined and preached about our MkI's, yielding many (if not most) of the suggestions that made the MkII what it is going to be.

That's my take on it, flame me for it if you don't like it. :)

D

I just want to say the new design kicks the llama's ass. You guys are forcing me to buy a new mark II.

Brian

I long to have a Mark II in my dash...

Oh, and I agree that "jukebox" sounds old-fashioned ... and old-fashioned is 180 degrees from the underlying point of the Empeg Car product.

-- Bleys



"If you would judge, understand." -- Seneca

I really like the word "advanced" -- it's synonymous with progressive, as in "forward-looking". (e.g. Advanced [Empeg Logo] Digital Audio)

"Mark II" is harder to position unless trademarked and used as such, but I think there's some merit to Dredd's analysis of the psychology surrounding that label.

-- Bleys



"If you would judge, understand." -- Seneca

I definitly like this idea, expecially the Mark II part. It was the first name that popped into mind when I made that post about it long ago. I hope at a minimum that the empeg logo appears somewhere on the front, as it should have the name of the company who labored so hard to create the thing somewhere visible to everyone, and not just the owner. After all, I can't see one other thing in my sight right now that dosen't proudly display it's company name. (Including "Microsoft" on my Datalink watch).

My empeg site is:http://24.236.3.131/empeg/