Last night, someone broke into my explorer and ripped out my Mark2 RIO and the chassis. Yes, I know, a pull out design is great for avoiding things like this, but it happened. I'm already pretty mad about it, but now it's time to figure out how to replace.

One idea is to try to buy a direct replacement. I'd be fine with that, depending on cost (would need 60GB and would prefer the tuner).

Another option is to see if there are alternatives that some of you RIO folks have switched to from RIO and thought the switch was successful.

Of highest importance to me is the hard drive capacity and quality of sound. Second is the display, navigation, the "coolness" of having linux running in the car, the ethernet for fast xfer, a pull out design, and a kick-ass remote that lets me do really cool stuff like "ignore this artist for this playlist" or "hey, play me some more of that album I'm on right now".

So, as I browse the ICE forum seeing some of the other folks' reviews, as a direct replacement for the rio car, what would be comparable that's out there now that does the above wishlist?

Thanx much,
Wayne

I think that most everyone's opinion is that the empeg is still the best in-car mp3 player. Any of the big commercial manufacturers are gonna fail you on your capacity requirement, and I don't think that any of the rest have anything that can really be considered to have great sound quality, at least not any better than the empeg, and are usually a bear to deal with. (This is hearsay, BTW.)

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Wait a minute. You owned an empeg, you should know all this already. Was this post a deliberate troll?

No trolling, just trying to see if the marketplace has come up with anything close in the last couple of years. I got my RIO religion Feb 2002, right when they were flushing out all the remaining units. I thought I got pretty lucky with the price ($499 for 60GB, $399 for 30GB, a friend and I bought 3).

I didn't go into all the sell-able features of the RIO because I thought that would be redundant and not a great read for the forums. So yes, I knew all of that already so that's why I asked -- what's out there now that has these main features?

Part of me thinks "empeg was the best and will always be the best" in the way I would think of my TI-994A or Perl 4.036. But reality dictates that while it may have been the best, it shouldn't always be the best, and especially in areas such as technology, you'd think (like the other part of me) that there's just way too much sense in the empeg for someone not to have improved on it and made it more sellable.

It's even seems more likely (to the other part of me) now that mp3's and ripping and the digital domain has really gotten ahold of the masses with 20-30GB portables, ipods, napster, etc.

Your reply is very useful because it tells me that in the areas I care about, you know of nothing out there that meets those needs. That points me to researching a replacement. I suppose my next steps are to focus on trying to get lucky again.

Any comments from people on the chances of me finding a replacement unit?

Oh, and...

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Sorry, didn't mean to rub salt on an open wound. I am sorry for your loss. But please PLEASE people: Pull out your empegs! Don't let this happen to you!

Yes, I do [crap... DID] pull the empeg out every day at work. I'm not religious about it though, and I was out [not home or work] and if I was smart[er] I would have pulled it out and put it under the seat at least. So I recommend to all of you to at least do that.

*nod*

Well, in terms of what's out there right now...

These days, thanks to Apple, it looks like the future wave is regular head units with iPod control interfaces. Sigh.

I have a friend with one of the more recent variations on the Neo, and he likes it. He's got a home docking station as well as the trunk-mount unit in his car. That and the Kenwood Music Keg are still about the closest things you'll find, short of CD-R players and portable player interfaces.

If you're willing to spend quite a bit more than what you paid for your firesale empeg, then your chances of replacing it with the same thing are quite good. Just remember, don't go for disk size because you can put in any size you want.

If you area DIY'er, you can match or exceed the empeg in most areas with a custom in-car computer. Specifically, you can get loads of hard drive capacity, great quality sound, VGA display, navigation, and fast transfer solutions including ethernet (including wireless), USB2 and firewire.

The negatives are that it's not as removable (although parts of it can be), and the user interfaces, while improving, are still rudimentary compared to the empeg featureset. There are some nice things that are available like touchscreens though.

Don't get me wrong, I'm still an empeg loyalist, because the software and community trumps all. That said, I've seen some spectacular carputer installs in the mp3car.com forums (as well as a lot of crap) so I'm just throwing that out there as a viable option. Be prepared for a lot of work and a much larger investment if you go that route though.