I hope the empeg guys can find ways to keep the empeg competitive...

You can bet on it. They've already got a headstart of at least a year on everyone else.

Still, I think if Alpine or Pioneer created an in-car mp3 player, it'll be proprietary anyway (looks like the Aiwa is)...

Everything from the big companies I've seen advertised for this year are all CDR-based or memory-card based. The CDR versions are definitely not proprietary, I don't know if the memory-card ones are. Either way, the storage per card/disc is limited. I love the Empeg because they've taken the idea to its logical extreme already: keeping your entire CD collection in the unit, on an internal hard disk. Not many other products (and none of the big-name products) have even attempted this.

Tony Fabris
Empeg #144
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Tony Fabris