Wow. So what was the cause of the lockups you say? Are you saying that it was because of vibration from 150db worth of sound pressure making the hard disks fail?

The SPL stuff you're doing: is it that real crazy stuff Tanstaafl talks about? Where you need plexiglass windows riveted in place, and a turnbuckle between the roof and the floor? That's some pretty insane vibration. I don't think it's fair to get mad if the Empeg can't take that kind of punishment.

I don't know what kinds of vibrations the Empeg is supposed to take, but have you opened it up and looked to see if there are any problems with the mountings or if the drive tray/cables are interacting adversely with the components?

I never posted this on the board before, but I once discovered that my first drive's IDE cable was rubbing up against a jumper on the motherboard, and I needed to fix the problem before the cable's traces got worn through. I also found that the rubber shock mounts would come out of their moorings if given too much stress. Perhaps it's something simple like that.

Now I'm sure that SPL competition isn't what Empeg had in mind for their product. Hard disks can only take so much (although they can take more than most CD players can). But perhaps a little work with the drive mountings would manage to let it squeak by. I think what you're dealing with is a device that simply wasn't designed to take those kinds of g-forces "out of the box", but it might still have promise if you're willing to work with the mountings yourself a little bit. For something as serious as SPL competition, you have to take matters into your own hands. You can't expect the manufacturers to support that kind of usage for the product. You'll need to make some modifications yourself. Some judiciuous use of foam rubber beneath the drive tray might be enough. Or perhaps longer IDE cables, with the drives given a more flexible mounting somewhere else, perhaps in the glove box.

Empeg, of course, won't endorse that sort of thing, and it would definitely be considered abuse. I just wanted to make that clear. But if you're serious about making this thing work for SPL, you're going to have to look into stuff like that.

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Tony Fabris