has anybody gotten any feedback on this hard drive reciever? how it compares to the empeg? it looks kinda cool that it is already pre-amplified and has a tuner.

I think hugo saw it at the ces show and wasn't hugely impressed with the interface

Do you mean the P900HD? That's the model that's available here in the UK (see here for specs)

It looks alright, I guess. Tuner is very nice - this is one area where the empeg is let down in the public view - people just don't understand that you don't use radio or cd when you have a virtually unlimited storage device installed! I also like the apparently 'soft' buttons, ala Nokia mobiles, which appear to have different functions depending on what you are doing with the system.

On the downside, it costs a FORTUNE, at least at the moment. £1500 quid for something that can almost certainly not have the HD upgraded, will not have support for future formats, no cool time-shift features (or breakout game) courtesy of third-party addons, etc. etc.

I'm also surprised that it has a built in amp... at this kind of price, they're really appealing to the kind of user who is gonna have a pretty good car system already, and won't want an internal amp generating heat in the unit. The high end units from Alpine and the like sometimes don't have an internal amp, although these days it appears they are having more and more. Even my cheapish JVC CD MP3 player has the ability to kill the internal amp to cut down on power drain and heat - although this unit might have that functionality too.

Also, the inclusion of a Memory Stick slot seems... odd. What would you do with it? I guess you could copy songs to it to use in a mobile mp3 player, but would you really bother?

It seems an OK device (although I hate the current Pioneer styling), but not at that price. They need to be selling it at the (at most) £600-700 price region. In my opinion, at any rate.