Hi,
I currently have a Neo 35 and I am happy with it somewhat. I am considering buying a EMPEG..It looks way better and is in dash. I only have a few concerns, maybe you guys could help me with.
I only have on bay for a deck, so how would I connect the Empeg to my system?? System has 3 subs, amp and speakers. I dont understand the whole internal amp thing..please explain this to me in lamens terms...

How is the random play? The neo 35 is terrible.

I know it fits in a car bay but..will it fit in a standard one like in my escort??

The visuals look great, can customized ones be made?

How hard is it to upgrade software? and logos? even though I run on XP and empeg is Linux??

Discontinued-why was it stopped if its such a great product?? I do not understand? Are they making a whole new one that will be way better?

Canada-this is the bad part, I am in Canada and the US to CAN $ sucks bad, and I am a poor student..so I need help finding a unit at a decent price. Currently I have a 40 gig in my neo so I think I would like to have that at least. Anyone help me with prices? web sites??

Can a regular IDE HD be used?????

How hard is it to install the radio thing?? Wil it get my regular channels?

I am very sorry for so many questions...just a newbie looking for help.

Thanks in Advance
Jim Richardson
jrichardson@mountaincable.net

The empeg is just (more or less) like any other high end audio deck. It has no amplifier built in (like high end decks) and must be used with an external amp (like you already have). You can easily install it in place of most other decks in most cars. But you obviously will no longer have CD, TAPE or RADIO.*

*There is a radio module available for the empeg but it currently sells for market price. Market price is very high right now.

Random Play: Very good. It will never repeat a song if that's what you're worried about (unless you have duplicates or the same song linked in multiple playlists). It can make a list from the entire contents of the player or any list you have previously created (lists can be thought of as virtual folders for organising). It can also generate dynamic lists on the fly based on search criteria (and you can shuffle that too). There are multiple shuffle modes as well to apply various weightings.

Car bay: Already mentioned. Standard DIN. You car may or may not be DIN, but trust me, you'll be able to get it in there. Whether you can have TWO decks is what you might want to consider if you plan to keep your current one (the empeg/rio can be played through the aux inputs of another deck, or it can have another deck play through its inputs - or neither if you prefer)

Visuals: Customized visuals cannot be made at this time. You can change the pictures for some of the existing visuals though and can make new dances for the dancing stick man visual.

Upgrading: Software and logo upgrading is simple. VERY VERY simple. It's just a matter of a few mouse clicks.

Discontinued: It came before its time. The market is still not ready for something so cool. It may never be ready for something with this level of hackability. It certainly was not ready for the original price tag. There's more money to be made by selling technology and making product for other companies that are already big players in car audio.

Canada: I'm in Canada too. There's nothing you can do about the exchange rate. You can look in the forsale section or look on ebay. carplayer.com and funmp3players.com might still have some units too. Do not under any circumstances get it delivered via UPS. FedEx if you don't mind paying for shipping and like the tracking number, or POSTAL if you want a decent rate. You can low-bal the value for customs with both of them and specify that the item is a GIFT. But you didn't hear it from me.

Regular IDE: Yes. If by "regular" you mean a regular 2.5" laptop IDE drive. It can hold 2 2.5" drives. All current drives seem to fit. They mostly work together but some people have had issues with certain combinations. pricewatch.com is a good place to look for drive prices. Also the forsale forum gets regular updates of cheap price sightings. look on eBay as well.

Radio thing: The external radio module is (rather) simple to install. If you can install the empeg, you can install the radio module. Check the FAQ. You should read the FAQ for many other reasons anyway.

Newbie: No problem. As mentioned, check the FAQ. It addresses nearly everything in here.

If you want to see a comparison of units, also check out www.mypocket.com/mobilematrix
Bruno

yes, yes, yes, and better. the random play in the current beta isnt the best, but its still way better than the neos random, the deck is a standard din so it will fit in the escort slot better than your neo. thanks to some good work from the people on the forum some of the visuals are customizable. upgrading is easier on a windows system than on a linux system, becuase the software sadly enough is built to run on a windows system, but if u do ever try and switch there has been another great person on the forum who has made a program called jemplode that anyone can use on any system that supports java. It was discontinued becuase of marketing, the just coulnt compete with other companys becuase they had a way higher volume of the market share, and therefor sonicblue gave up, and is now from what i heard only going to do OEM devices, such as a rio stock in new cars ect. if your wallets concering you u may be better off getting a 10gig then upgrading the drives. i know www.carplayer.com still has some and there prices go up almost every week, a regular laptop ide cable will work just fine.. now the unit has room for 2 ide laptop drives, much better than the neo's 3.5 drive that are very weak to shock. The radio is cake to install if you can get one, its a very hard thing to find at a decent price at the moment, there has been word of another batch of them comming out, but im not holding my breathe. i hope i answered everything for you, and good luck with it

Most of your questions are answered in the FAQ. Please click here.

Okay, I went through the list of questions, and they are all answered in the FAQ, except one of them didn't have its own specific entry with an itemized list. So I have added a new FAQ entry on the subject of creating viusals for the player.

empegs currently for sale are all being sold at a decent price. Compare the price to what they used to cost and compare to the price of any other mp3 product for the car.

The reasons you mentioned for discontinuing the product aren't accurate. The empeg had no competition in its product class. It simply didn't generate the volumes needed to produce such a costly unit.

Buying a unit with the needed (or more) storage space in it already may be cheaper than upgrading a 10GB unit. Check current prices to make sure.

There are tools to upload under Linux. They were around before jemplode and are available at the empeg site (www.empeg.com). jemplode is easy to install anyway and will allow you to access the player on pretty much any machine in wide use today. I'm sure someone could make it run on an Amiga even.

But... As Tony mentioned... This is all covered in the FAQ. And specifics about other players are covered on my comparison page.

I notice Mr. Seed has already posted to the forsale group looking for a unit. Good luck. It can't hurt to have another running in the Great White North.

Bruno

Yeah, what they all said!

Nobody ever regrets buying an Empeg (RioCar) player, especially not at current prices. I'm in Ottawa, you're somewhere around Hamilton, Bruno is down your way too. We're not the only Cannucks in these woods, either.

The 30GB players were liquidated at US$300 + shipping + duty + taxes, tallying somewhere around C$650 or so. Lots of player for the money.

EDIT: ooops.. that's US$400 (not $300), or somewhere around C$800+

Cheers

Oopps.. a little memory trouble there..

The 20GB players were US$300;

30GB went for US$400..

-ml

The current prices will seem even better value if the RIAA get their /GB tariff bill through the Canadian Government.

I had a Neo and now got a couple of Empegs, (spare unit just incase), I gotta tell you, get one, you'll be glad you did, and the neo will just sit on the shelf like mine!

Wow,
You guys are really cool on this board!! So many replies in such a very short time! Thanks alot. Your advice has been great and I think that I am going to buy an EMPEG. It's just that I need to get ride of the Neo 35 eheheh and I need to find someone here in Canada who could sell me an Empeg at a fair price with at least 30 gigs.

Thanks
JIM

I'd be able to sell you a 10GB empeg. Or I could even make it into a 20. But it wouldn't be at a "fair" price. Well, not fair to you anyway.

Bruno

"with at least 30 gigs"

I'd take what I can get if I were you. If all you can get is a 10 gig, then you can always upgrade the hard drive yourself. Whatever opportunities you can find, take them. I got lucky and got the close out prices, but I was saving up for the "regular" prices. Believe me, its worth every cent they were asking for.

-Jeff

I am 99% sure the Escort has a standard DIN slot.

Marius (Escort Cab + Mark II)

I'd be interested in buyin a unit. I'm in the US, email me:

Jcboeckl@unity.ncsu.edu

Thanks

Actually the ~20$ per gig tariff only applies if the drive has never had audio recorded on it.

If the retailer simply copies an mp3 onto the device prior to selling it the tariff would not apply. Infact if you follow it to the letter they could copy over an mp3 and then delete it which would still count.

Another Canadian eh.
-Geoff

Buy one from carplayer.com. I won't sell my extra unit as cheap as they're currently selling their last stock.

Bruno