ebay just sold a tuner for $372.50. I suspect SB didn't blow-out many of these as the demand for these units appears to be fierce.

Now if I had a tuner, I would put it on ebay for 1,000$ and with this money flight to US at your annual meeting...

Now THAT is the best justification i've seen. =] I couldn't argue with that one.

pathetic

at that point you could buy a really nice cd deck to go with the empeg and just use that tuner.

If you have space for two DIN units. Otherwise you have to buy a new car. And some people are willing to part with $300+ to avoid getting a new car.

Bruno

It's getting ridicolous now isn't it ? I more than wonder if there is a market for the empeg and accessories now ?

\\Kaare

Yeah, you gotta wonder: If people are willing to pay $372 for a tuner, why wouldn't they pay $699 or more for the full unit? I guess it comes down to supply and demand. When people think it's not EOL'd, they think it's too expensive. But, when you know that they'll never be made again, you suddenly are willing to pay a premium.

<<when you know that they'll never be made again, you suddenly are willing to pay a premium. >>

I happily paid $1900 for my 36GB. Late last year, fearing that S3 wasn't doing well financially, I attempted to purchase a 2nd unit on their Web site for ~1K (?), but their site wouldn't accept my order. When I saw their blow-out pricing, I purchased 10 units :-)

So, you're right. I would never have purchase 10 units for myself. But I figure with a MTBF of 5 years (likely much longer), I'll be 80+ when they bury me with my empeg.

Having worked in IT for 16+ years, I know not to say that it doesn't get any better. However, I doubt I'll see a color plasma screen mpeg 1.x player with a xx TB hard drive (and of course Linux not WindBlows) hit the street anytime soon. So, I was willing to stop the clock and increase my stake in the empeg. I suspect S3 is wondering what's going with their faster than expected fire sale.

As for S3, I hope they can get their act together. I dropped an email to their CTO explaining the problems with their order entry on their Web site (family and friends couldn't sucessfully place online orders). No response, and the problem still exists.

Sean

i would hate to be that guy who spent Near $400 for a tune, when knowing how this commuity works since there is such a high demand for them.. they have to make more sometime weather it be in a month or in a year.. i would feel great.. if that was me.. i bet the guy who bought it wont tell a soul on the board.. heheh

Let's make this clear: your bought 10 empegs as backups, not for resale, not even for friends and family!? Wow! That's really something guys@empeg can boast about! I hope you will lend some of them to those you mentioned not being able to order ones of their own.

It would probably be more useful to send your comments to the VP of Customer Service, Jim Hafner Eaton. He has previously ask me to provide his email address to customers who have had a bad experience - jimhe@sonicblue.com.

Rob

Post deleted by blitz

Has anyone (like the folks @ carplayer.com?) talked to SonicBlue about licensing the Intelectual Property for the Empeg line? I know that there have been quite a few Multi-Player game systems that when the main company EOL'd them; the user comunity set up a non-profit/S-corp/LLC/whatever to take it over.

I would think that if "we" (the comunity) had the IP rights, we could find a manufacuter to make small lots of items like the Tuner (I need 2!) and the unit itself.

Casualzen
<still waiting for my 2 MkIIa's>

Blitz,

I can totally agree with you. Even if one spent $400 on the tuner and $400 on the empeg itself, they would still be far under the reatail price of the Empeg alone 3 months ago. I would happily pay $375.00 today if anyone wants to sell me thier new tuner.

Lets be honest with ourselves, mp3s are great, but when you have good radio stations in your area, nothing can make up for Live FM radio. At least not yet

BTW, seriously if you have a tuner and want to sell it, email me...i will pay the ridiculous price for it!

ED7

Rob is working on getting a user funded tuner run under way, he is still waiting on information from the manufacturer at this point. There will be new tuners some day most likely.

It's someone like you that will end up buying one of my backup empegs for $2000. Sweet.

I think most people here can afford the $400 tuner. That's not the point. The point is that they don't feel "right" about doing it, considering they were being sold for $70 in December. They don't feel right that someone emptied out the Rio store for the purpose of grey-market selling them on eBay.

Next, the person who speaks loudest about comparing income statements is usually one deluded in their own pathetic existence. A fool and his money are soon parted. I didn't notice your name was "Bill" by the way. Also, leave the religious talk out of the forums.

Bruno

And congratulations. Great way to make friends.

[edit: He's from Texas... That explains it. Everyone from Texas is born with a chip on their shoulder - only the lucky ones manage to lose it.]

If you've got so much cash that's burning a hole in your wallet, there is an opportunity to make a lot of money by investing in another tuner batch... There seems to be just a *little bit* of interest in the tuner, and you'd be helping a lot of people out...

Post deleted by blitz

wow, well.. hehe i dont knwo what to say.. i decied to go xm mainly for the paoint that i got free gear thru my company, i just have to pay for 11 months of the service, and yes i can afford $400, but the point is exactly what hybrid said, and i do understand what u were thinking about the combo of the 2 being about the same or a lill less than when they had the blowout sale.. im not trying to be rude.. and im not saying you are.. just kinda shocked me that someone would put that kinda of money into fm radio, its something i havent used in my car since i got the player.. and i feel my $70 went to waste, i have it more of a safty thing rather than for music, becusae i would like to know about traffic, and emergency information, that the empeg cant do on its own. well no hard feelings

"He's from Texas... That explains it. Everyone from Texas is born with a chip on their shoulder - only the lucky ones manage to lose it."

Hey! Watch what you say on here, we have many Texans on this board! ;-)

Sean

ElectricD7,

I'm sort of interested in selling my new tuner (tested in the Empeg, but not installed). I was planning to use it if/when I installed my second Empeg in my other car. But for what they're bringing in the marketplace, I can live with my current CD changer and use the Empeg at home or sell it.

So do you still need one? I'm in the Bay Area in California. You in the US too?

Barry

Yep, Im in the US. How much do you want for it?? You can email me directly at chad@weblifeinc.com. Thanks.

Great! Add me to that list! >grin<

I was thinking a little larger though... Pulling in the whole line, so that "we" could then have an ongoing source of product. (Heck, make a few new converts out there as well, I would hope!!)

casualzen
(trying to figure out how to do something w/ a DIN & 1/2 opening... >grrrr< )
- waiting (still) on my 2 Mk2a-30g's >fingers crossed<

I do not regret at all any of my empeg purchases. In fact, I think it was perhaps the best purchase I have made in recent memory. Even my dead remote did not upset me.

No different than when the first Mk1's came out and there was a year+ waiting list of people. Someone who had a reg number less than 400 (mine was 586) got their hands on a couple first batch empegs and put one up on ebay. I don't recall exactly what it went for, but it was a 6GB Mk1, original price 1199$ (I believe) and sold for well over 2100$.

IMHO: That was kind of a jerk-maneuver.. but I guess its the epitome of consumerism. Same situation here.

I can't believe that people want FM that bad! Even when I only had about 1000 tracks on my empeg, I didn't miss radio at all except for traffic and weather. Simply putting the TV on while I get dressed for work fixed that (radio traffic updates never did me any good because I had already chosen my route to work and couldn't do anything about an accident).

My guess is that the only people who would pay over $100 for a tuner are the same people that didn't "get" what the empeg truley was. Not because the total price (clearence price + ebay tuner) is still cheaper than original MSRP though. If you really understand the empeg, and know that it was designed to carry your entire music collection, there is no need for radio. If you love radio so much, then you probably don't own many CD's because you are happy hearing Linkin Park 20 times a day (ie, mp3 isn't really for you.)

I hope I didn't come off as being elitist to our new members. It is easy to see why so many people didn't "get" the power of the empeg because Sonicblue did very little advertiseing. I didn't "get" the empeg until I had been reading this BBS for a few months, realized its community would be around to support it, knew that the community included the actual empeg team and saw a long video demo of the unit. Even after that, I needed a little nudge. But, being an "old-hand" now (hehe), I can say, from a year's ownership experience, I have never wished I had an FM radio (soooo lo-fi) and would have felt I wasted my money if I had spent $100 on one. I've wanted to post this more often, to maybe save ONE person from getting ripped off on eBay, but I didn't want to, in the same stride, reduce the chance of the independantly funded tuner run mentioned in this thread.

So IF you want a tuner, wait for the next batch, but it's not worth $300! (get a FM Walkman (do they still make those? ) and hook it up to the Aux. The reason many of us long-time members get upset is because this whole community has been based on people going out of their way to help others out of generousity. Even the empeg team encourages you to upgrade your own hard drive if they feel you are up to it! I don't think Frank got paid for his Displayserver or Mark got paid for his Kernal hack (other than some kind donations). The smoked lens were very affordable. No $$ is being made off of this BBS (no ads! ) or RioCar.org. I could go on and on and on.

I hope I didn't come off as being elitist to our new members.

Hey, how about old members???

I actually have a tuner module I am keeping right now just because of the Sony wired remote interface. However, if I didn't have one, and if it had happened that the WRX had been delivered as a single-DIN, I'd probably be hunting for a tuner on eBay. Somehow, I can't make the Empeg receive Car Talk and/or KEXP without a radio of some sort (a design shortcoming!)

OK, so money is an issue and I don't think I'd be bidding $300+, but there are reasons folks want tuners, even given the sorry overall state of radio.

I don't think that "getting" the empeg concept and wanting a tuner are mutually exclusive. If they were, then the Empeg guys probably wouldn't have made any!

There are times when I want to hear the news or weather, a new drama, or whatever. Or just fancy a break from my music. Not to mention others who follow sport or The Archers.

Not that I'd pay those silly prices for one, mind.

One use for a tuner that hasn't been mentioned here is to hear new music that isn't already in your collection. It doesn't matter how many hours of mp3s you have on your Empeg, you're just not going to hear anything new in them

I'm lucky that Boston has some good radio stations, and short journeys are when I'm most likely to tune in to them.

You still wouldn't catch me paying that much for the tuner module though...I'm keeping my old HU for now so I don't really need it.

And if anyone here has too much cash, feel free to send me some

I guess I didn't try hard enough at not offending. I appoligze. Can I make it up by saying "nice car!"

Is there any way to time record Car Talk to mp3 via MusicMatch? That would be a pain doing a sync for each airing though... oh well!

I am getting a kick out of reading the thread I linked to however!

Hey Mr H, the good landlord at the Wrestlers mentioned that there's a round of drinks waiting for us in your name - thanks

Rob

by saying "nice car!"

Shucks, you probably say that to *everybody* with a WRX!

Don't worry, I just thought "old users" were being left out of the fun! And witness what might have been a seminal event (Hogan used a smiley! Hogan used a smiley! )

At least you're suitably conscious of the fact that you've "got religion"! (Although, I'd still be careful. If you don't watch it, you'll be wandering around this BBS chanting "Praise The Lord!" like everybody else!)

the Wrestlers...

The pleasure is entirely mine. (Though I suggested to Tom that he just say "the northwest" so there'd be just a hint of mystery while you down that pint! Dang.) Anyhow, hope to sample their Thai food sometime !

It would be rude to reveal the identity of the person, who, when Tom said, "It's from somebody Hogan," and we all said, "That'll be Jim," was heard to say "Hogan? That's Paul Hogan"....

(No, it wasn't me)

It would be rude to reveal the identity of the person...

Tell them not to worry. As I advance in years, I am impressed with how much more understanding I have become when it comes to momentary lapses....

ummm....it wouldn't have been Rod or Hubert, would it???

(NO relation to Ben, Paul or Hulk!)

Is there any way to time record Car Talk to mp3 via MusicMatch?

Your best bet with this is to get an FM tuner for you computer (like $20, I think) and a program that can record on a timer. I think TotalRecorder can...

Your best bet with this is to get an FM tuner for you computer (like $20, I think) and a program that can record on a timer. I think TotalRecorder can...

Yes Total Recorder can do that, but this page at cartalk.com has the show broke down in segments.
Ahh crap, I just double-checked and it's .ram format. Well better get the FM tuner and the Total Recorder. Or you could record the playback with Total Recorder, TR will not record any gaps from buffering pauses.
I'm currently working on getting my comp to capture DirecTv/TiVo feeds so I can archive the fishing shows... And make my own fishing shows with the miniDV camera

Hmm. I was wondering if anyone had yet invented a "realaudio stream recorder" which did the job directly rather than having to go through TotalRecorder. I noticed a program called "Streambox VCR", which does exactly that, but is supposedly hard to find. I wonder if, with some scripting and wrappers, it could be made to grab the latest CarTalk and encode it regularly...

Streambox VCR. It's ``illegal'' to own in the US. Seems to work for me. Can't find a way right now to convert directly from RA to MP3, though. Apparently, all the old WinAMP RA plugins don't work now.

You guys just need to find an old version of the software, called Streambox Ripper. It allowed you to rip RA directly into MP3. I don't think it does streams though.

They took the RA ripping out after ver 2.009. If you can't find it, I'll put it up on FTP or something. I'd put it up here, but it's 1.64MB. Is that too big for the BBS? If someone wants to offer to put it up on their server, I'll email it.

dB Power Amp can convert from .ra, as it turns out, with a plugin available at the same site.

Funny, I was just about to post the same link. Heh.

Spiffy program, that dbPowerAmp. And free, too.

Horrible UI, though. Or lack thereof, really.

Cool, I'm going to have to check the program out. Any other interesting features?

So what program CAN convert an MP3 stream into an MP3 file?

- Jon

Okay, I just tried dbPowerAmp, and it works, but I've got some problems with it:

1) The RA codec seems to do a worse job of decoding the file than simply playing it back in RealPlayer. Even when I convert it to a wave file (no re-compression), the resulting file has different audio characteristics than what I hear when listening in RealPlayer. The dbPowerAmp-decoded file is tinnier, raspier, and seems to have more compression artifacts than when I listen to the original in RealPlayer. I made sure that it wasn't the EQ in WinAmp or in RealPlayer that was the culprit.

2) The decoding is slow. In fact, it's so slow that I wonder if it's real-time (i.e., 5-minute audio clip takes five minutes to decode).

Anyone notice the same thing?

downloaded the lastest promo only cd, and you got the months new tunes simple solution to the radio.

Does your car have windows? Mine does. I can look right through them and see both traffic *AND* weather. Neat, huh? With radio you only get to "hear" about traffic and weather.

If I go out (at lunch or some other small run) without the empeg, I don't listen to anything. I would rather keep my head unit stuck on aux, listening to silence, than turn on the radio. I don't know of any radio station anywhere in the world that would make me change my mind. Well, I suppose if I were in the UK and they had a good indy station, I'd be into that.

Bruno

And what would you do if Canada was being overtaken by polar bears armed with machine guns? How would you know about it?

lol your funny hybrid.. ya accuklly the $70 i spent is well useless i turned it on 2 times for testing the fm tuner.. but too much work to sell it since its in the car, oh well... maybe ill seell it i can tear my dash apart again for $300 bones..

Does your car have windows? Mine does
nope sorry mine dosnt.. it has linux

When will one of you guys post some pics of this pub? Then we can see exactly where the beer will go. You guy's keep a regular spot in there?

I'm going to have to see if I can get a cheap flight over there some time just to come and buy you guys a few rounds in person.

Bruno

I believe that the dBPowerAmp plugin uses the DLLs from RealPlayer, which might explain the real-time decoding, but would tend to refute the worse decoding. It may be that you've ended up resampling it. Does anyone know at what sample rate RA is encoded, or how to determine it, if it has multiple sample rates? Maybe you could try all the sample rates that the WAV generator allows? I thought that the LAME plugin did a pretty good job, but I was just testing the CarTalk, and not looking for remarkably high fidelity.

Good one, Justin, ROFL.

It may be that you've ended up resampling it.

That sounds like a reasonable explanation to the effect I was hearing.

Does anyone know at what sample rate RA is encoded, or how to determine it, if it has multiple sample rates?

Yeah, in messing around with RealPlayer, I was unable to see any detailed data on the track format that it was playing.

but I was just testing the CarTalk, and not looking for remarkably high fidelity.

Me too, but in going back and forth with a simple A/B between the source RA file and the generated WAV file, it was a pretty obvious problem.

And if the real-time decoding thing is actually true, then it's time to start shopping for a different RA-to-MP3 converter program. If I want to batch-encode CarTalk episodes, I don't want to have to wait an hour for each one.

In reply to:

---

it wouldn't have been Rod or Hubert, would it???

---

ROTFL - priceless!

Or perhaps people can not live without talk radio and traffic reports? My Durango is not double din, and the Supra has electronics in the second din location.

re:My guess is that the only people who would pay over $100 for a tuner are the same people that didn't "get" what the empeg truley was. Not because the total price (clearence price + ebay tuner) is still cheaper than original MSRP though. If you really understand the empeg, and know that it was designed to carry your entire music collection, there is no need for radio. If you love radio so much, then you probably don't own many CD's because you are happy hearing Linkin Park 20 times a day (ie, mp3 isn't really for you.)

Bruno,

I totally agree with you! Traffic updates don't do me any good once I'm driving because I've already decided what route to take. In contrast, watching traffic updates on the TV or listening on the alarm clock/radio allows me to leave a bit earlier or plan another route. Same thing goes for weather. I already KNOW what the weather is once I leave the house. It only helps when I see a winter storm coming in the night before (evening news) because then I can actually do something about it! (ie, get up earlier.)

I've been using the Wireless Web on my phone to get detailed local forecasts... that's kinda neat.

Anyone think we can convince the Car Talk folks to use mp3 or wma?

To discover new music, I go by friend's recommendations, MTV2 or internet radio, etc.

Anyone think we can convince the Car Talk folks to use mp3 or wma?

Nope. They sell their old episodes through audible.com, so they really don't want you to download the shows, which is likely why they use rtsp-based RealAudio for the free (latest) episode.

So what program CAN convert an MP3 stream into an MP3 file?

My favorite is Ultra Player. It allows you to open a URL to a MP3 stream and then record it at the same bitrate. So, if you're listening to a 128kbps stream, it'll record it to a 128kbps MP3 file. I think it basically just copies the bytes straight to a file.

As for the RA to MP3 conversion, I think the StreamRipper is faster than 1x. Everybody used it while it was still available. I'm just not too sure about the availability of it now. I'm still happy to email it to anybody that wants to give it a shot. The version I have only allows 10 trials. But, I'm sure you can probably find a crack for it. Of course, I'm not advocating piracy...I just don't think it's possible to buy the older version anymore.

Wired News Radio - downloadable mp3 news stories: http://www.wired.com/news/radio/

EDIT: Just noticed that they don't seem to be doing any new stories...

In reply to:

---

Traffic updates don't do me any good once I'm driving because I've already decided what route to take. In contrast, watching traffic updates on the TV or listening on the alarm clock/radio allows me to leave a bit earlier or plan another route. Same thing goes for weather.

---

My experience is different. There's not much I can change for the short journey to or from work (normally 20 minutes; the only time it's been over half an hour is once when there was an accident stopping me in a queue for an hour). But traffic info is invaluable for longer journeys to the less-flat bits of Britain.

For example, if I'm going to Scotland, my default route is via the A1 and A66. But I might choose to go along the A14 and up the M1 to Leicester, then across the A50 and up the M6. Or along the M6 all the way, perhaps detouring via Walsall to avoid Junction 8. Or perhaps up the A1, then across the A57 to the M1 and through Bradford (top place for curry).

In other words, there are several decision points along each route, and having some extra information helps make these choices.

My home stereo will switch stations for "News" or "Info" broadcasts; if the empeg could do so, it would occasionally be useful, and definitely have Cool Factor even for those who don't use it .

This tuner business is crazy... I thought I got a deal when I bought one for 200 bucks from another guy online "new in box", it was new in box... Unfortunately it was faulty "new in box" so it's in the UK now... tech support says well... it's faulty... and the one we had set aside as replacement is faulty too... suckage.. Hugo's outta the country but I'm told he'll look at it when he gets back... I hope he can fix it!!!