Personally, I prefer simple yet elegant. The empeg appearance meets these criteria, whereas most aftermarket stereos are just gaudy.

-Biscuits

But did you buy it for looks? (forget technical specs for the moment) Or has it grown on you? I certainly did not buy it for the looks but for what it could do.

Its lack of buttons is a bonus, but I think it looks a hell of a lot nicer with the aftermarket aluminium fascia.

Rob, the four little buttons on this Intel/SB prototype looked suspiciously similar to a Mark 1. Would we find some familiar disk caching and menuing code under the hood?

I did not buy it for looks, but I certainly would have thought twice if it was as gaudy as many products on the market. Besides, it is quite an advantage to have it match my Ford Explorer with the smooth black finish and blue screen.

I recently got some weights to start lifting and books on how to use them. Unfortunately, the text always seems to go like this:

"If you were to do X reps with X percent of your max weight, you would build endurance, but little muscle mass. On the other hand, if you were to do X reps with X percent, you would greatly increase strength. Instead, I'm going to show you how to build mass without significantly increasing either."

If that is the case, why not just get implants? I'd rather be twice as strong or have twice the endurance than twice as bulky.

Form over function or function over form?

-Biscuits

I don't know whether this has been considered, or whether it's too late in the development cycle to do so...

What are the chances for a replaceable outer shell, as is common in the cellphone market? If it meant that the unit was a couple of mm larger in all dimensions, then that'd be an acceptable tradeoff IMO.

Then you'd just need to sell a couple of other shells to promote the idea, give/license the CAD/CAM files for the shell to a couple of the aftermarket cellphone shell suppliers, and Bob's your Uncle. Red, Blue, Silver, White, Carbon Fiber, wood effects, green with pink polka dots, you name it...someone will want it. If done well, it could become a major marketing win over the Ipod - especially since it'll especially attract the consumer that is less likely to be concerned about the technical wins.

I think that it's fair to say that the volume of these units that you can expect to sell will support such an idea.

The big question is whether it'd also be easy to replace the thumbwheel and buttons?

...although I'd draw the line at embedding flashing garish LEDs into the shells...

I'd actually like to chrome-plate the existing face for my empeg, but if I toast it then I have to get an entirely new face...

I managed to get a new facia for my MKII from support just before Christmas as the cleaner managed to drop the Empeg on the floor (only damage was to the facia where 2 of the screws go through).

I only paid 10 (OK, who stole my UK pound key, damn US keyboard) including delivery to the US.

Umm, goof ball? Sorry you don't like it, but we think it looks good, especially when made with suitably cool materials. The #1 design goal was to avoid the ID mistakes of the Riot!

I'm not sure if you realise how small this product is - a CD player shape would be totally inappropriate!

Rob

Oh, you meant carry case, rather than business case!

I'm sure it'll come with a purpose made carry case. The Riot and S series do.

Rob

Out of curiosity, who does your product design these days? Is it you guys, or internal to SB, or SB hired contractors, or contractors you hired? (Or none of the above?)

It seems like this will be another great product killed by poor styling. I think I am going to stay with my open source Archos Recorder./

If we can't make it look better than the Archos I may shoot myself.

Rob

Out of curiosity, who does your product design these days? Is it you guys, or internal to SB, or SB hired contractors, or contractors you hired? (Or none of the above?)

Surely you know it's all done by Patrick's cat now ?

I thought everyone knew that.

Yeah, might be worth asking. Hmmm.

Out of curiosity, who does your product design these days

We use specialist industrial design companies. Pearl and Slate were designed by one of the best in the business. Hopefully more people will like it when they see the actual metal, rubber and plastic materials that we will be using in production.

Rob

Yeah, and the most important thing, because it's not tacky and flashy, it doesn't draw attention to itself. If it was more "attractive", it would also be attracting thieves. The empeg almost looks 100% stock in my car, which makes me less worried about having it ripped off in the odd chance that I leave it in the dash.

In reply to:

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but for some reason, large expanses of white just don't do it for me

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Large expanses of white to me say "THX-1138"

Well... "Goof Ball" may have been a little harsh.

While I think the iPod looks far too much like it belongs in the perfume department of Nordstrom's, the minimalist styling is important. My personal opinion is the groovy, funky, organic shapes that SonicBlue has been using in their portables recently screams of "LOOK! WE'RE HIP! NO, REALLY..." (Although I will give you the S series look to be designed mainly for hand-held use while exercising.)

My main concern is it functions well, and the styling doesn't get in the way of use. The simple shape of the iPod and the Archos makes it easy to find aftermarket cases and straps in a variety of sizes. The "OEM" cases packaged with most players I've found to be either of shoddy manufacture to keep costs down, or so specific to be inflexible. My Archos case is not big enough to carry my headphones in their protective clamshell for instance... but I can get a number of different cases that would work great at the local camera store.

To be honest, the best "OEM" case I've used is the one for the Empeg. I wish it were a little larger to carry more connectors and the power supply. And who's idea was it for the pocket to open on the bottom when using the side handle? tsk tsk tsk...

The Pearl design is based on ergonomic principles. Hands are not rectangular.

The cases for portables tend to be designed for protection while the unit is in use (controls accessible and screen viewable) rather than plain transportation of the unit and its accessories. I can see how a second type of case (similar to a camera case) would be useful.

Rob

Okay you said one of the best so is that patrick or not and is there silly messages in it

Umm, we're talking about Industrial Design - Patrick doesn't do that.

The electronic design was largely in-house. Patrick was not involved so there are unlikely to be any silly messages at all unfortunately.

Rob

Most aftermarket stereos look like tacky mobile discos with far too many buttons. The Empeg's understated looks and large, clear display are much better than this.

Uhhhh, yeah. What he said.

tanstaafl.

Looks great I can't wait for this to come out. And I hope to god it won't use anything from Real.

i second the Real comment.

*crosses fingers that this thing will bring emplode like tools for Riot use as well*

I think it will include one or two surprises in that department.

Rob

Expect a thank you letter from Kelly. hahah.

OK, I think it looks pretty effen sweet. How 'bout a trade up special for all of us loyal riot early adopters?

Will it be compatible with the RIO Central upon release?

I'll see what we can do with the Central, but keep in mind that the player has USB 2 and 100Mbit Ethernet so the Central won't be the fastest option for populating it. Of course if all your music is on the Central then that's immaterial.

Rob

I would have thought support for all the new portables would be added to the rio central. (maybe it's dying )

We did add support for the portables since the Central was released, but unfortunately it is taking a long time to get it through QA. We seem to have introduced some new bugs in the Receiver server which we have to fix before the update can be released. This is a live and official project, though!

The issue with Pearl isn't really compatibility (although the protocol is substantially changed) - it's just that the speed will be limitted by the Central hardware. We can't do anything about that. There's no point connecting a 100Mbit Ethernet adapter to USB 1.1.

Rob