The state of this community is really a just shadow of what it used to be. There's no more excitement for the empeg player. Most people that have an empeg couldn't do without it. Even so, lots of people are beginning to sell their spares. That's a testament to the quality of aftermarket support, but indicates people are losing interest (from my point of view).

I, for one, still check this board constantly throughout the day. For the past few weeks I’ve noticed hours go by during the day without a single post in any forum. This used to be unimaginable.

Without new software being hyped, why would most users come here? The empeg crew isn’t even posting about new hardware here. I’m not saying it’s their duty to, but that would be exciting. It would be like people being attracted to this board to hear the latest news about Pearl, the Visteon unit, or version 1.1.

How many times can you talk about fun things like what your favorite beer is? God forbid you even think about driving after drinking said beer. You will be flamed. Did I just say God? I must be some churchy kook and must be flamed. Did I just call churchy people kooks? Now I really must be flamed!

I admit that I usually am a pretty negative person, but I think Rio really dropped the ball on a lot of things. All the possibilities that could have come from the empeg code base have gone nowhere. Yeah, we got ogg support but very little else since the firesale. The Karma is at the end of its life and its successor is nowhere in sight. Who the hell is Cowon and where do they come-off bringing something like this to market while Rio is competing against every factory in China that can put a memory chip, LCD screen and headphone jack into a plastic housing? Why is a screen-less iPod Shuffle even considered over a Rio Forge?

This community is falling apart fast. Key figures don’t post for months at a time. Fewer meets are happening. Fewer and fewer people attend meets that do happen. People are growing up and getting more responsibilities like jobs, marriages, kids, and houses. Cars are becoming increasingly difficult to put an empeg in.

How many people are going to the European meet? It’s 7 weeks away and I don’t know anything about it other than the dates and my flight number. I’m not saying Rob S should be hyping it every day, but nobody is talking about it.

This board may exist for many years to come and I will see it to the end. But, it is becoming a much different place.