Hummmmm I have posed this question before lets try it again what is the frequency responce of the empeg ? its not listed in the FAQ or the Book, the Aux input frequency is listed (must be an oversite)
110StnR is well above most car steros and typical channel seperation 50dB while a little low is well within range of car audio. I would love to see "hard Numbers" for the empeg on
Here are the Numbers for Alpines Top of the Line Flagship model you can see for your
self Empeg is not out of range

CD Player

Channel Separation (1kHz) : 85 dB
DAC Type : M DAC (96kHz / 24Bit Multi-Level DAC)
Dynamic Range (1kHz) : 95 dB
Frequency Response : 5-20k ±1 dB
Horizontal Resolution : 500 lines or greater
Number of DACs : 2
Optical Output : Toslink (Dolby Digital/DTS/ LPCM)
Oversampling : 8X/352.8kHz
Sampling Rate : 44.1khz
Signal-to-Noise (S/N) : 105 dB
Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) : 0.008%
Wow & Flutter (%WRMS) : B.M.L
FM Tuner

50dB Quieting Sensitivity : 1.3/13.5 (uV/dBf)
Alternate Channel Selectivity : 80.0 dB
Capture Ratio : 2.0 dB
Mono Usable Sensitivity : 0.8/9.3 (uV/dBf)
Signal-to-Noise (S/N) : 80.0 dB
Stereo Separation : 45.0 dB
Tuning Range : 87.7-107.9MHz



Audio DAC sample rate fixed 44.1KHz
DAC typical S/N ratio 110dBA
DAC typical output noise 3uV
DAC typical THD + N 1Khz, 0dB -70dBA
DAC typical dynamic range 1Khz (-60dB) 102dBA
DAC max crosstalk 10Khz -69dB
Aux input frequency response 20Hz to 18KHz
Aux input typical channel seperation 50dB
Volume control range -66dB to +20dB
Balance attenuation range LR 0dB to -30dB
Fader attenuation range FR 0dB to -30dB
Tone control range, bass/treble -12dB to +15dB
Dynamic loudness level range 0dB to +14dB
Dynamic loudness offset range 0dB to +24dB
Dynamic bass boost level range 0dB to +14dB
Dynamic bass boost offset range 0dB to +24dB
Equaliser 20 band parametric set as 2 x 10-band or 4 x 5-band
Other audio features Dynamic range compression

Quote:

The bigest problem with your setup is the empeg, I had a long talk with a car audio system designer, and he did some research into the empeg's audio end.. while much better than a normal PC system, it has a long way to go to compete with some of the better quality decks out there.

doing the digital out, and getting an external DAC would probably be the best solution to really getting the best quality out of an empeg based setup.