Ok folks, I have the ability and skill to design any number of pretty cool boxes or contraptions to mount the empeg for home use. However, some of the recent ideas I've had will involve some research to locate suitable parts. I'm hoping other have some leads to some of this stuff and can offer any otehr suggestions.

Initially I thought of making a simple component box that would just fit in with your standard seperate stereo system. Even though I may still do that, I also thought that it would be very cool to replace my alarm clock radio (I hate the thing and I really hate radio). For proper alarm-clock use this will require an alarm clock userland app (Tony (ynot) is working on one).

So, for my first dock I'd really like the following feature-set.

Out the back:
- The standard stuff provided by the car dock (stereo line-out, serial)
- plus ethernet
- IEC power receptacle
- speaker-level outputs - powerful enough to drive modest bookshelf speakers

On the front:
- a hole for the empeg
- a master power switch
- LED to indicate power status
- 1 or 2 toggle switches (for options about to be mentioned)

On top:
- SNOOZE button (this will need software support, because my idea is to have it use the phone-mute line as a trigger)

Inside:
- empeg car dock and wiring (to connect stuff already mentioned)
- two small speakers - capable of fairly decent sound
- power amplifier - to drive the speakers above, plus the speaker-level outputs on the back


So, those are the basics. Things I'm looking for are:

Good suggestion for an amplifier to put in the box.
Good suggestion for where to get the speakers and any tips on wiring them to amp, etc.

With regards to the amp, more options become available. Should it be strictly a power-amp using the empeg as a pre-amp, power-amp + seperate pre-amp or a combined pre-power-amp. There should be a lot of options here all the way from buying transistors and IC's yourself to build one, vs. premade small boxes (such as the headphone amplifiers mentioned in another thread). The idea here is not to spend too much getting these parts. I wouldn't want to spend the same amount to put an amp in this box that I would spend on a multi-channel pre-built amp to run my entire car for instance.

I've already been thinking of materials and ways to style the enclosure, but if anyone has anything to contribute, go ahead. Always open to more ideas.

Bruno