Has anybody checked this out? Looks like it could be indirect compition to the Empeg. It is a portable MP3 player that looks like a portable CD player. It has an internal 6gig hard drive, and Creative Labs say that the software is fully upgradeable like the Empeg. It also supports other file formats.
Although it does not have any visuals, it does support many, many playlists.
There will also be an "car adapter kit" available that will come with a cigarette lighter power adapter, and an FM transmitter so you can listen to it through your exsisting radio.

Here are my first impressions (compared to the Empeg)
Has in common with Empeg: has outputs to hook up to your home stereo
Similer type PC software for u/l and creating playlists
Software is upgradable
Massive storage (6gb)

Advantages:
-About half the price (MSRP $600 US) for the same amount of storage
much more smaller and portable, you can listen to it with headphones
-You can bring it anywhere and listen to it (your car, your friends car, your home stereo, your friends home stereo etc)

Disadvantages:
-No Visuals
-Limited to playing only music files (no other uses)
-bulky to have it playing in the car
-Has no room for expansion (can not add more storage space)
-FM Quality when playing in your car (unless you use some special connectors)

Anybody else have any ideas? Please keep in mind that I said it was in "indirect" compitition to the Empeg. I realize that it is not in the exact same class.

Thanks...

That's the first that I've heard of the nomad jukebox, and I have to admit - it looks cute.. It's really no different then the compaq personal jukebox that has been out for quite some time now... When it falls down to it though, the personal jukebox is just what it says - a personal walkman-type jukebox. The empeg sticks out as a high-end car stereo.

In my mind, there's several features that stick out as leaving Empeg in the lead in the car-audio market:

• Voice recognition
• parametric equalizer
• visuals
• software

The folks at Empeg have proven time and time again that they're listening to their custumers. Often times, a feature gets suggested, and a short while later, it is incorporated into the player software. Empeg has also stated in the past that they're not a hardware manufacturer - anyone can clone the hardware - they're a software manufactorer and are selling you the software when they sell you the Empeg. In the end, it is mainly the software that diffirentiates the Empeg from the other products out there.

I've owned a sound blaster live (from creative labs) for more then a year now - I think creative has had one software upgrade since I've owned it - and the upgrade wasn't even noteworthy (w2000 support, which was actually their 1.0 software for w98 made to work under w2000) - These companies simply don't want to/have the time to/ are unable to listen to their custumers...

Just read on in this BBS - This is one of the few companies which actually listens to their custumers.
-mark

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

Voice recognition is something other manufactorers are going to provide, too.

I think another important thing is that the empeg's software is upgradable. Like already said in an other thread a usual car-hifi will have it's functions and will stay at this level. But the empeg is just running a program which you can vary.



TeeMcBee

The nomad is cute, but:

- Playlist support isn't a patch on what the empeg provides
- Database facilties nonexistent in the version I saw
- UI not suited to in-car use
- Display is non-backlit & small - not good for in-car
- Audio outputs not suited to in-car use
- Limited storage
- 74Mhz cpu cf 220Mhz

It's great for the price, and as a walkman. The price is lower simply because of volume issues (ie, they make a LOT of these!) and the fact that it's a simpler device; it has many fewer interfaces, less power and less storage.
It does do full-bitrate recording (not encoding) though, which is very cute as a DAT replacement :) (no idea on battery life when in that mode though!)

Hugo

Can you guys provide record and encode capability as well? This would be for at-home use of course, and the option will be disengaged when on the road.

Calvin

Why disengage it on the road? You could make personnal notes while driving, record music from your cd player/radio, or from the built in FM tuner, and it could encode it on the fly. It should have no problem at all encoding it to MP3 in real time.
I guess the only real problem would be naming it. But if it has voice recognition, then you should just be able to tell it what you want the file saved as.

I think the hard drive should be set in read-only mode when the car is moving, because it limits the number of ways the music can be corrupted. That's why! :) For temporary and brief notes it can sit in memory. Empeg car has voice recognition, but not general speech to text capabilities.

Calvin

The empeg does keep it's music partition mounted read-only. However it can still write to the disk because it uses a "scratch" partition on the disk (I don't think this partition has a file system on it, I suspect they use their own data structures, probably with lots of checksums...)

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Unit serial number 47 (was 330 in the queue)...