Wow, when I started reading your post, I thought I was going to be the first to say "you must buy an Empeg now!" But I wasn't prepared for you to say that you don't own a car.

Honestly, the Empeg Car is called that because that's its main purpose: to go into a car dashboard. As a portable MP3 player, it's not particularly useful or convenient. As a home-stereo component, it works quite well, but it's not particularly pretty in that environment and it's not a standard rack-size and shape. Actually, the Mark 1 probably looks better as a home stereo component than the Mark 2. But like I said, home-stereo use wasn't its primary design target- it's just an afterthought.

Choices like the Rio or the Nomad are out, since they have paltry amounts of storage. It sounds like you want your entire CD collection in one place.

Since your CD collection isn't huge, it sounds like the PJB-100 would make a much better portable MP3 player for you. You could easily store your 40 CDs on its 5-gig hard disk. You could also just continue using your laptop, but it's a tad less portable than the PJB-100 would be. It's up to you whether or not you want to shell out the cash for the increased portability that the PJB-100 would get you, or whether you want to just keep using your laptop.

Personally, what I'd do is go the economical route and keep using the laptop as you have been, if necessary adding a bigger hard disk to it to accommodate your entire CD collection. If its CD-ROM drive can rip the CDs, too, then it's an all-in-one solution and you really don't need to change. Then you can save up your cash for both a car and an Empeg to go into it!

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Tony Fabris