Honestly, I always felt that the base/trebble on my apline head unit sounded much better (crisper/brighter) then the empeg. I've attributed this to the mp3 compression though and bad equilization on my part though, and have not blamed the empeg.. (well - except for the noise floor on the mark1's, but you've fixed that:) )
-mark

...proud to have owned one of the first Mark I units