I just had to people ask me what the hell the Empeg was sitting on my desk...and when they got that it was a car stereo of sorts... the reply was "wow, awesome... they should make it a little nicer, it looks like you just stole it out of the parking lot!"

Although I like your idea for an in-home casing (if that idea ever comes to fruition, remember to put rubber feet on it, and cooling holes in the proper places), I don't think the Empeg looks like a stolen radio. You were probably talking to a generation of people who've never owned a pull-out car stereo. It's a shame they don't make them that way any more (since faceplate stereos get stolen anyway, I know this from experience).

When you're with the right crowd, the Empeg's appearance can be self-explanatory. Just yesterday, I showed it to one of our new programmers. My only introduction was "have you seen this yet?" He stared at it for about 3 seconds and then said... "is that an MP3 player for your car?"

This is without reading the label or anything. He just saw the audio cables, the form factor, the lack of a CD insertion slot, and used simple deduction to come to that conclusion.

His next question was "what's its capacity?" Heh. Smart guy.

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Tony Fabris