ssiamerica looks like they're coming out with a low-ball competitor to the empeg... It's clearly not in the same ballpark as the empeg, but hey at $349 plus the cost of a hard drive it might suffice for some people. It accepts 3.5" drives, and it doesn't seem like there's any shock protection, so that would be my biggest concern.

Actually what intrigues me more is their smaller portable unit, very obviously a competitor for the PJB-100. It has a user-upgradable 2.5" hard drive. I have a PJB, and it's nice, but I'm stuck with a fixed hard drive unless I decided to do some tinkering :-) On the other hand, I've got a 10-hour battery vs. their 2 hour, so there's a rather big advantage...

Michael

Their car player looks dreadful. Accepts only one hard drive... Absolutely no competition for Empeg.

This has been mentioned before, and the problem (that Hugo and others have mentioned) is that the car dock is much deeper than the empeg, and so only a handful of cars will have the room behind the dash...

Jazz
(List 112, Mk2 12 gig #40. Mk1 4 gig #30. Mk3 1.6 16v)

Their car player looks dreadful. Accepts only one hard drive... Absolutely no competition for Empeg.

I fully agree that this is no competition---that's why I've ordered an empeg :-) But capacity is not the reason it will lose. It accepts a 3.5" drive, and I can get a _single_ hard drive up to 80GB now. Compare that to the empeg, whose largest current capacity is 36GB, and maybe 64GB by the end of the year---at which time I won't be surprised if the 3.5" half-height capacity limit cracks 100GB.

Frankly, I think this sucker will conk out at the first bad pothole that you hit while the drive is running, due to the vastly inferior shock handling (by nature of the fact that it is little more than a standard removable IDE drive dock.) And the display is inferior to the empeg's of course, although it does seem manageable.

Still, I imagine some people will look at the price and find it hard to justify the empeg, because they don't appreciate these issues.

Yes but those of us who know better will be rollin' in style with the Empeg.

Really doesn't look to bad. Good price. MP3 only, but not really a problem these days. Can play playlists, just not nested like the empeg. If it fits, it is perfect for those people not ready to spend the money for an empeg.

I used to use a 3.5" HD in my car for a long time without (noticible) problems.

Alex Lear

I wouldn't discount the Neo purely on looks, because compared to the Mark 1 the Neo surely looks cleaner and better at least from the outside. At it's price point, it has the potential to kick some ass all over the place. The Neo plays MP3s and so does the empeg. If you don't think a nearly equivalent yet inferior product priced at a fraction of a superior product can sell like crazy, eventually driving the superior product out of the market -- think again. This has happened many many times in any market.

Calvin

Geesh....I've been told 2000 songs is less than half cap. on a 10G drive, how many CD's you guys own anyway?

I used to be dyslexic but I'm KO now.

I've got ~2200 songs and am at about 11GB. I'd say my bitrates are about normal. Let's see, estimating 1 MB/min, 5 GB=5000 MB divide by 3 minutes (avarage song) and you have 1666 songs. Just remembered: average Techno/Trance and Genesis song (about 700 of those...)= 8 minutes, I guess I'm a bit of a hog. The 1 MB/min is a pretty good guess though. Glad I got an 18, might need another...

-Zeke

just say you weren't paying much attention...

I've been collecting for awhile and have no way near that many songs maybe 300 at the most. Where are getting that many songs, are they the whole CD or just choice songs?
Curious


I used to be dyslexic but I'm KO now.

whole cd's.. Think about it; even if you just have 50 cd's (which many people do), that's 500 songs right there.. (about 10 songs/cd..) I personally own over 300 cd's, so that's 1500 songs right there, then there's the assortment of accumulated songs on top of that..
-mark

...proud to have owned one of the first Mark I units

Yes...I guess I'm too picky (thanks for Napster), I only rip about 1-2 songs from any CD with exception of few (Pink Floyd,Metallica {oops, bad word}).

I used to be dyslexic but I'm KO now.

Limited display functions too.

Volume scale from 1 to 64
Equalizer Rock Jazz Pop User Normal
Song ID Directory Title (CD, Mood, Favirote). Track Name ( Track No. Song Name).
Play Song Time Played, Song Length.
Play Mode Repeat 1, Repeat All, Random, Normal


Note the EQ settings. not very flexible but probably quite utilitarian for the average (non geek) person. Volume scale is meaningless too.

more of a pretender than a contender. Did anyone notice that htey haven't even labeled their home page?


Murray 06000047
____________________

I've found a most useful toolkit in the following combo:
1. High speed connection (cable/DSL/T1 etc)
2. Newsgroups, notably alt.binaries.mp3 alt.binaries.music.mp3 and alt.binaries.sounds.mp3
3. A newsgathering program such as Newsgrabber 3 (http://www.trontech.com.au/grabber/).
I have nothing but good things to say about this piece of software. It's not for posting, just downloading.

I find Napster/Gnutella etc. too slow compared to NG's. If you want a particular song, Nap/Gnu are the way to go, if you want to expand your horizons, newsgroups anyday. I've been buying way more esoteric CD's since I started with NG's. IMHO.

-Zeke

just say you weren't paying much attention...

Limited, but, good enough. It's the difference between a in dash CD player and a trunk mounted CD changer. There are pros and cons in everything from prices to functionality but when it comes down to it, one of them is good enough and one of them is definitely better. It won't mean empeg will lose business, if these guys can turn these things out in the tens of thousands, then what?

Calvin

Well - Have a thought at this:

You've 6, 12, 18 or 36 GB on the Mk2. (er even more if you upgrade it)
I've got a 12 GB Mk2 and it's full with 2803 songs.

I also thought about just ripping the best songs of all CD's I have. But finally I ended up with ripping the whole CD cause it's not too much space waisted. After having enough mp3's I burn them on a data CD. Now I have about 40+ mp3 CD's. And I put just some 15 or something on the Mk2 (cause there's no more space left). But I'd like to put all of my songs on the Mk2. Even if I don't listen to every song and I sometimes skip some songs I don't like - But maybe sometime I'd like to listen to a very special song (quite easy to find if the ID3-tags are filled correct) which I didn't think of before just because it comes to my mind. And then I have it there

Maybe it'd be better to not be so very selective. But it's your choice.


TeeMcBee
Got my Mk2! # 080000143

So it is less advanced and fancy compared to Empeg, but the real gem here is The NEO 25 (the portable one), and one I'll seriously consider.

Here's my take on things:
With this little portable thingy, I get the best of both worlds, play it in the car or when travelling (for which I now use MD). I did look at the PJB but find it too expensive and limiting; particularly lack of remote and difficult to upgrade drive.

This thing I can slap on my dashboard with a bit of Velcro (which I do now with my MD in anticipation of an EMPEG; I'm on the waitinglist No. 15,4.. something and expecting an invitation to order any moment); I can connect it to my home stereo and control it using the remote; take it with me travelling.

Another advantage: only 1 device to maintain for music at all locations. With an Empeg I'll still need to keep recording MDs separately. I can also delete all MP3's from my PC and free up some hard needed space (and burn my MP3 on CD-Rs as a back-up).

Purely a bonus for me not a must, but a big deal for others having read all the posts: you can use it as an external portable hard drive, copy to and from. I'm sure that once used to this, I'll really appreciate it.

I admire the Empeg for its brilliance, but in the end its main purpose for me is playing back music. I think I can live without the graphics, equalizer, networking capabilities and other cool things. Taking price, portability, ease of use into consideration, the NEO 25 does become an alternative to EMPEG, I'm sorry to say; it all depends what you're looking for.

As it so happens, their European office is in Nijmegen (Netherlands) which is not too far from where I live, so I'll pay them a visit one of these days to check the thing out.

My main concern is sound quality; when the time comes I'll take my laptop with my own MP3's, MD player and phones with me and do a direct comparison.

Another concern is battery playback and inconsistency of info on websites: 3 hours according to European site, 2 on American site; 90 minutes on American site listed as accessory or on the info page when you want to order.

Cas

THe biggest _disadvantage_ to the NEO 25 is the battery life---about 2 hours, compared to about 10 hours for the PJB-100.

I've been investigating if I might be able to expand the disk capacity on the PJB-100. Of course, if I do it myself I'll void the warranty, but heck I've already opened the thing up to take a look at the innards anyway. It turns out that the "pjb100" group on egroups has a number of folks who have been investigating this same problem. It turns out that there is a Toshiba 20GB hard drive that is compatible with the PJB-100.

Michael

I used to be dyslexic but I'm KO now.


"Dyslexics of the world.... UNTIE!"

tanstaafl.

"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

If it's a portable hard disk based player that you want then I would advise waiting a short time, to see what the major brand names release. I'll bet there's some nice (and not home brew) kit on the horizon.

Rob

You tease.

___________
Tony Fabris

Hmmm,

You know something I don't, you guys been OEM-ing?


Cas

Hmmm... I could really use an Empeg docking station...

nah... Make that two docking stations.