Hi,

I've been using my empeg hooked up to my home stereo to play music for parties. It is okay, but needing a laptop to easily search for tracks and insert into the playlist isn't alway practicle. This could be helped by getting a hub and moving the laptop near the bar or something (instead of using my 10ft. crossover cable) but another concern is heat. Finally, aside from it not always convenient to plug it in my stereo rack, the sound level from the empeg isn't that strong so my amp is cranked and gets HOT.

Building a home dock for the empeg seems like too much work for my limited skills and considering that extra sleds are not available, this could be a daunting task.

So I've been looking at getting something "else" for home use. It would also serve as a backup for my mp3's. The Jupitor, or HSX-109 or whateveritscalledthisweek is nice, but the drives are too small (fixable) and it is a wee bit expensive. Also, I don't need ripping or burning built in (hint, come out with a model with fewer features to broaden the product range?).

Getting a bare bones system or used PC seems like a good option. I certainly wouldn't want it in my stereo rack, so I was looking at getting something like a RioReciever. I have to admit that I'm a little confused about how it works... I heard that the empeg can't supply a RioReciever because it would require too much memory. I have also read in an ad that the Rio can run off of Winamp or MusicMatch or other popular mp3 players.... I don't get this! Does this mean that the RioReceiver is just a terminal and doesn't do any decoding of mp3's? So it doesn't stream data, it just pulls decoded audio from the PC? I'm confused. So that would mean you can't build playlists like with emplode? Instead you can only play m3u files created with another program? I guess that wouldn't be too big of a limitiation in itself, but I really get the feeling that I'm just not getting it...

I'm not crazy about using the little display either.. Is there a way to get a notebook hooked up the receiver? This would mean needing 3 "boxes" to use this thing..

What are other options out there? Does anyone know of any good reviews of the reciever that wasn't writen by someone at Slashdot?