I first heard about the empeg during the first waiting list, but I definitely didn't "get it". A guy at work got on the list and basically the rest of us made fun of him for paying $1600 for an mp3 player. When his name finally came up he was so excited it was hard not to be excited for him, even if we thought he was a little nuts.

Then it arrived. It took about 20 seconds seeing it out of the box before I understood what it was really all about. "Oh, this isn't about mp3s," I realized. "It's about music!" So I swallowed my pride, offered my humble apologies to my coworker, and went home to tell my wife we had to get one, no matter what the cost. We'd just bought our first house though, and money was tight so I had to start saving penny's and dimes. Over the next year or so I told everyone who would listen about the player and swore I'd have an empeg, but unfortunately everything happened (my wife had surgery, house stuff, etc.) and so buying an empeg went on the back burner. Until the fire-sale. I was actually scared when it happened because I thought I wouldn't get in quick enough. If the price had never dropped I would have bought one at full price, but I got lucky and got a 10 gig for $200. Still I believe I was about physically ill for the two days I thought I'd missed my chance. My wife even bought me a computer game (Wolfenstein) to try and cheer me up (in the end I played it while listening to music on my new empeg!).

So I bought mine at the fire sale, but I definitely "got it" at the higher prices (after a bit of heretical heckling).