does turning the unit on from standby different than from turuning it on with the ignition wire? I figured the empeg was just using the ignition wire as a sense, not to actually power the unit, 'cause the unit works w/o the igntion wire.

yeah the VW also has the timeout feature.. if the radio is on for 1 hour w/o input it will shut off.. (always happens when I'm washing the car)

so am I understanding that there is no way for the unit to be turned on from a complete powered off state with out having voltage on the ingnition wire?