Well, I was definitely WELL above 500kbps.... I did 650MB CDR in about 10-12 minutes.... that's about 1 MB per second. Mighta been slightly less, but I'm guessing it was close to the 850 figure you mentioned above....and this was using emplode by the way. However, my Empeg is still relatively empty. Maybe as it fills up it will slow down a little?