Mario makes several great points, including reminding everyone of the fact that the base model Empeg Mark 2 was in the $1000 range with only a 6 GB hard drive. A comfortable but by no means massive 18 GB model cost me $1599, and I had to add on another drive after about a year of use. So the Neo was definitely better in terms of affordability, and it's unfair to compare the Empeg at $199 to the Neo at whatever price it is/was at.

However, as mentioned, the Neo is a stinking piece of bat dung compared to the Empeg... Factor price out of the equation and of course the Empeg is superior. Nobody ever said the Empeg was cheap, but it definitely has been said that we've all gotten what we paid for.