The empeg's future is a small one. Most of us here don't think that Alpine or any other manufacturer is going to ever make a better device for listening to your own music collection in the car.

They will certainly make flashier ones, ones with bigger and better screens, ones with HD radio, ones with satelite radio, ones with navigation systems capable of guiding a spacegoing probe, but when it comes down to it, once you've learned how to use your empeg to the fullest extent, it's going to be far more powerful than any interface designed for selling stereos on the wall at best buy. Higherarcical playlists, tweak order, bookmarks, custom shuffles and wendy filters are all featurers that are probably not likely to see the light of day until AI gets to the point where you're talking with your car and asking it to play something that suits your mood, not interacting with the stereo.

At least, that's my guess. I'd love to be proved wrong. The car PC crowd may work out something comparable sooner, but I'm not holding my breath.

Matthew