(and yes, I've realized that this won't help tanstaafl, since he was counting on using the parametric EQ in the empeg.)

Actually, I've solved that problem.

First line of defense (offense, actually...) is when the IASCA judge gets in the car and hands me his CD, I just point to the empeg's Now and Next display and say "Oh, don't bother -- it's already cued up and ready to go. These are the buttons that advance to next or previous track." I let him assume there's a CD changer in the trunk or something. If the judge is alert, he won't let me get away with that. In which case, I go to option #2...

I have a portable CD player I got from Crutchfield. I have a cable set that feeds the line-out of the CD player into the auxilliary input of the Mark II sled, permanantly installed. That cable terminates inside the glovebox, where I also keep the portable CD player, wrapped up in a soft cloth to keep it from getting scratched. If the judge is unreasonable, then I grumble a lot, pull the CD player out of the glovebox, plug the cable into the line-out, switch the empeg over to EQ preset #6, and go on from there. The catch-22 is that the sound quality judge can't take away any points for bad ergonomics, and the install quality judge will never see the portable player. The sound quality of the portable is acceptable but not as good as the empeg (it has a warmer sound, not as crisply defined as the empeg, and has a more noticeable noise floor.)

I would be interested in hearing from people who know if some portable players have better sound quality than others.

I am going to try and lobby IASCA this winter to make a decision on how to treat the empeg, as I am sure there will be a significant number of them competing next year. I don't think there will be any good news forthcoming, however. IASCA makes a pretty good point when they say that a competitor who re-masters the official disk to hide the deficiencies of his own system would have an unfair advantage and short of having the competitor play the judges own disk, there is no way to guarantee a level playing field.

tanstaafl.

"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"