its not exactly the sound I was looking for,

Believe me... with the options you have for ripping and encoding files (CBR, VBR, high/low bitrates, normalization, MP2/MP3/WMA/WAV files, etc.); the 20-band parametric equalizer; the 11 different Loudness settings; fade and balance controls; your choices in amplifiers, crossovers, gain settings, and speakers; you can get virtually any type of sound you want.

As you pointed out, it's just a matter of tweaking, and the empeg has enormous tweakability, more than any other head unit you could install.

My system has been together for eight months now, and I'm still tweaking on it.

tanstaafl.