I just received my 60GB Rio Car from Sonic Blue about four days ago. My car is at the mechanic getting some stuff fixed, so I won't be able to think about installing it for another week or so. However, I have been playing with it and I have to say that this thing is freakin' *awesome*. I was up until 3:30am last night ripping CDs with LAME 3.92 (--alt_preset standard) in anticipation!

Anyway, back to my reply on this topic. When I hooked the unit up to my home stereo, I hear a lot of noise when I turn the volume up a decent amount. I can hear a constant digital chattering noise when the unit is on, and I can hear two distinct whines going up and down when the hard drives spin up/down.

I don't think it's the electronics. I'm running a Sony TA-E9000ES preamp into a Sunfire Cinema Grand 5chx400w amp, with Magnepan 3.6s up front. When the Rio is not connected but right next to the stereo, it's silent. When I have it hooked up with a long RCA came to get it away from the stereo, I still hear the noise. So, it's not noise induced by interference, but noise in the signal. I'm sure some of this is the fact that the outputs are only 1V when hooked up for home, compared to the 2V for the rest of my hi-fi gear.

Does anyone else hear the chattering and hard drive stuff on your home stereo? I contemplated building a home dock until I ran into this. Maybe something's wrong with my unit. Any other datapoints would be welcomed!

- Chris (back to ripping MP3s)