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To me most people would buy a more extravagant fancy MP3 player for their car. One that has a screen for nice visuals and looks/features. Then a much cheaper more portable small mp3 player for the gym, walking, etc.


Operative words being "much cheaper".

I don't think you realize how expensive something like the empeg is to design, engineer, and produce. Did you know that they cost over $1500 when they were in production? That isn't because they were gouging the buyers for all they could get, either. And you know what? The development costs of the hardware were trivial compared to the costs involved with the software -- man-years of development time by highly skilled programmers.

The niche market for this product was pretty well filled by the time the first 2,000 units were sold. Sonic Blue bought empeg, saw that the first 2,000 had sold well and produced 2,000 more. Sales went flat after perhaps 1,000 of them sold, and after that they couldn't even get rid of them at less than $200 per unit. It took months before they cleared out the inventory, and I'll bet that at least half of the last 1000 units went to existing owners who bought them as spares.

The market for audiophile computer geeks willing to spend $1500 for a computer to play music in their cars is pretty limited. We were just the lucky ones who happened to be in the right place at the right time to get ours.

tanstaafl.


I said "much cheaper" for the smaller/portable mp3 player. Ipod or Zune or Sansa.

Then I personally would spend much more on an empeg like advanced mp3 player with all the bells and whistles.

So your telling me that the market was entirely dried up when sonic blue did the FIRESALE? If that is so then how come several people ended up buying them off ebay for around $800. Yes I know $800 USD is far less than the retail price of $1299 but still its 4x the $199 firesale price.

My point is that better advertising could have been done. I'm a tech guru myself and love gadgets and car audio but I didn't find out about the empeg until it was being liquidated.

As for newer cars not being din compatible. I suggested something like a more advanced display extender. Where the face of the empeg would be portable/removable and the empeg itself mounted in the trunk and easily removable for taking inside.

Also I know the pains and lengthy programming time that this project must have endured. I'm fully aware of that and thankful as well.