While the Rio Central is great for what it does, buying it for the sole purpose of serving Rio Receivers is overkill. Having most of my music ripped already, and being sold on --alt-preset-standard, I don't see myself ever buying a Rio Central. It serves no purpose to me, since I don't need a box to rip all my music to CBR, burn music CDs, or squirt music to a portable player.

The Rio Central is great for the non-techie to replace his 500 CD player with. And had you not gotten a Rio Central as part of the beta test, I doubt you would have plopped down the money needed to buy one. Great idea, but it's target market is not most of the empeg owners. Mark 3 owners (had it existed) would be another story.