Good idea. Now all you need to do is:-

1) Work out a way to incorporate a power supply that'll handle being stuck inside a dashboard in conditions from -30 through to 130 degrees.

2) Screen the board to meet all the stringent RFI regs floating around these days.

3) Fit in an extra soundcard and pre-amp to give you a sensible line level and multi-channel output.

4) Design and build a means by which to control it whilst driving.

5) Hope and pray Tosh develop their product along lines that suit your planned developments.

Etc, etc.....

I've had this discussion with people before now, and it's easy to say you could do it. In reality, just those 5 points above are going to cause you enough problems - and you'll probably find yourself cursing at the fact you chose generic parts.

Anyone can build an in-car MP3 player - Hugo's even made some info available online that'd make the task easier (I'm still waiting for Linux DVD drivers to become available so I can put the spare mobo and DVD drive I've got sitting here to good use, and Hugo's info means I can build a power supply nice and easily). The key point is though, Hugo (and the rest of the Empeg team) have actually taken that idea and built it into something that's nearing the point where it's useable by the average computer user.

I was lucky enough to get the job of installing the Empeg into Hugo's MX5/Miata - part of the job was to remove the original prototype MP3Mobile unit Hugo built that started all of this. To an outside observer, it was a pretty cool bit of kit. Nice display, custom case, numeric keypad to control it all, line-out to connect to the existing radio-cassette in the car. In reality though, there was no way you could ever give this to the average man on the street and expect them to figure it out.

Harware's cheap - and these days, just about anything's possible. Creating a finished, professional end product though - that's a different matter.

Dominic

Cambridge Car Audio
http://www.cambscaraudio.co.uk