Just to keep you guys up to date with the thread on Linux.com here's my reply to Trae's reply to my reply.
Does that make sense??
First of all I'd like to thank you for taking the time to read my comments on your review and for replying without it getting too heated!!
The reason for my "Another Planet" statement was in reply to a specific number of your comments relating to:

1. Needing a fast internet connection.

2. Assuming that it was the Empeg that was a non-standard size and not your vehicle's "DIN?" aperture.

3. Overall negative tone to the whole review.

OK I'll take these one at a time:

1. The idea behind the Empeg is that you encode your own MP3s from your own CD collection. Stating that you will need a fast internet connection infers that you will be downloading your MP3s from Napster or such like. Now that's OK if you already own the right to have a copy of the tune, either on CD or Vinyl etc. but you'd be much better off encoding your own as many of the MP3s available on the net are of inferior quality. So from your statement I concluded that you didn't realise that you could create MP3s yourself, or that you don't have any CDs of your own from which to create the MP3s.

2. The Empeg "sled" as it's called is of completely standard DIN size and no trimming of the vast majority of modern vehicles' apertures is necessary. As I stated in my initial reply, I had no problems at all fitting mine into the dash. It annoyed me that you hadn't checked whether it was the Empeg Car player or your vehicle which was at fault before submitting your review.

3. OK I know this one is a bit non-specific but if I didn't own an Empeg already and I read your review I may never have purchased one. I've had mine for about 10 weeks or so and I certainly wouldn't go back to a 10 stack CD changer again - no way!! No skipping or jumping or wearing your CDs out with those horrible load mechanisms. I would therefore have found the review totally misleading.

The vast majority of people who will be purchasing an Empeg Car player will at least have access to a Windows PC. Now I know it's the spawn of the Devil and all that but you can't get away from the fact that it is the dominant OS on the PC platform (until Linux takes over the world that is :-) ). It therefore makes sense for the Empeg team to channel their efforts into the platform which the majority of owners will be using to interface with their player. The player itself is very open and I know of at least one developer working on a Java GUI interface to the player for any OS that has a Java VM. There are other utilities also being developed by third parties and of course both the PC client and the internal software are being continually developed by the Empeg team themselves. These updates are available for download from the Empeg website. These updates are not just bug fix releases either but contain new features too. One of the extra features in the pipeline is voice recognition - a major feature nes pas? Oh, and of course they're all free. Other features I believe are either due for release or are being considered are:

1. Enhanced and greater number of visuals. Including an end user/developer plug-in type API.
2. Support for other encoding formats such as WMA & Ogg Vorbis.
3. Enhanced and additional searching facilities on the player itself.
4. Ability to work out which tracks you haven't heard for a while and give them preference when in shuffle mode.
5. Bookmarking of tracks.
6. General marking of tracks for whatever reason (perhaps a track has been badly encoded or needs a higher bitrate).

I'm sure there are many other features and enhancements being talked about within the walls of Empeg towers that we as end users don't know about.

I believe that many high-end head units have no amplification of their own and therefore rely on an external amplifier to drive the speakers. So the problem of finding space for your amp is not confined to those who choose to purchase an Empeg Car player but is a problem common to most if not all high-end in-car audio systems.

You mention in your reply to my comments that you enjoy your Empeg Car player every day. Why didn't you convey this in your review? Your comments about the Linux software being poor may be well founded but I would have thought as reviewer you might have taken the trouble to test the supplied Windows software ("Emplode") even if you don't like the platform, most of the target demographic will be using it. I believe that had you reviewed the player as an in-car audio player (which is how I interpreted the marketing) and compared it to competitive products (what competitive products? - there is no competition! - sorry I'm getting carried away again :-) ) rather than a piece of hardware which happens to run Linux then the review may have been more positive and I believe fairer in it's content.

I'm sure that other Empeg users will read this and be able to add some things that I have inevitably left out but I hope that I have gone some way to setting the record straight for those of us who are lucky enough to be part of the "Empeg family" and for those who have yet to own one of these excellent pieces of kit.

Thanks for "listening".


beaker
12 gig blue