Oh no, I've tried good-souding systems. And they sound good. I just don't see the point. When I'm driving I'm concentrating on driving, not on the music. So I don't notice if it's clean or smooth or punchy. When I'm at home, on the other hand, I do notice these things because when I'm at home I listen to the music. Your assertion that MP3s are 'fine' doesn't cut any ice with me. As a semi-pro musician I'm used to hearing my gorgeous-sounding mixes on CD, and I'm used to hearing those lovely mixes sound like my morning toilet exertions when converted to MP3. Oddly, the terms 'clean and smooth' that you use are exactly the words I would NOT use to describe MP3s. So you can see why I don't regard the sound quality of an MP3 player as paramount.

External amplifiers are far more stealable than normal car stereos. Why? External amplifiers don't have security codes or removeable fascias. I speak from bitter experience. Thieves took my freind's amps (one in the locked glove box and one under the seat) and speakers (8) but left the coded stereo. And we'd only finished fitting it all an hour previously.

Anyway, I seem to have started something I didn't intend to. I hope EMPEG does well, because if it catches on it will hopefully lead to the kind of player I'm looking for. And I support anything that used ARM processors. However I regard MP3 as a format which has convenience as its one and only virtue alongside a host of faults, and therefore I'm not prepared to pay more for an MP3 player than I would for a conventional stereo.

Mark.