I know that this has been touched upon in recent threads...but they were mainly rants.

I have been on hiatus for a while and didn't get the info on the price drop. I went to make an order, and see that the Tuners are unavailable. So I have 2 questions:

#1 Will more tuners be available to purchase...and when?

#2 Can you use the Empeg (er uh...RioCar) without the external tuner to listen to the radio? Will it sound good?

Thanks,

Jason Sarich

Options are being looked at on getting more tuners, but there are no plans that I know of to produce any more at this time. You may never be able to get one - I don't know. I hope no misguided soul decided to buy out all the tuners and stockpile them somewhere.

2. Hook it up to another head unit and use that units tuner. It will sound fine. I guess if you are really handy with electronics, you could possibly wire in another extenal tuner???

I hope we are able to somehow get everyone a tuner that wants one.

Sean

If Empeg won't make anymore tuners then they should release the pcb design and parts list for us to make our own. Someone here could pick up the project and get them made.

We'll try and do this if all else fails; however, it's not a "hobbyist" project, as many of the parts are not readily available from distributors - eg, antenna connector, canned tuner module, etc.

It'd really have to be a commercial effort - ideally, someone paying the existing factory to make another batch (as they've built 1000 already).

Hugo

If you guys could pull that off, that would seriously rock! Hugo, I have had the Mark1 unit and it is failing left and right, so when I finally get my ass in gear to buy the Mark2 unit, it was very discouraging to know that I couldn't listent to the radio.

Please keep us all informed of the progress with getting that shop to run another batch for us late adopter's!

thanks!

Jason Sarich

Mk1 failing? In what way? Audio cables are known to get stressed and can fail after extended use, but these are easily fixable...

Hugo

well, i am getting intermittent failures on the left channel (it will fade to the right over about 5 seconds). I know it isn't the amp...i have narrowed it down to the empeg. The weird thing is, all i have to do is either a) turn off the car, or b) pull the empeg and plug it back in. It just needs power cycle. but there is no telling how long it will last. I have found that it lasts much longer with lower volumes.

The other thing is that I have always had the problem of (i believe after many many MANY troublshooting sessions) the daughterboard under the drive cage wiggling loose and it ends up making the speakers crack/pop under jolts (potholes, bumps in the road, etc.). I have taped the entire player up, checked the cables, everything, and after just pushing down on the daughterboard (which had hotglue connecting it but didn't work) the popping went away. But it continues to wiggle itself loose (but doesn't feel like it when I check) and the speakers pop. It drives me NUTZ!

The last thing was some of my songs are getting "corrupted" (since the upgrade to B3). the static and noise from the song is unbearable. and it keeps eating more songs that used to work. I have been told that this is a known bug in B3, that is fixed in B7, but to wait, cuz, B7 has more bugs that would drive me nuts as well...

There you have it! Those are my issues.

-Jason

Downgrading to 1.03 will solve your static problem for sure. If the left channel is failing, have you tried testing your wiring loom and checking for continuity from the left channel plug to the left channel pin on the connector? Have you tried cleaning the docking connector?

Sean

I have tried cleaning the docking connector..but what do you mean by continuity from plug to pinout?

Secondly, how is cleaning it going to fix the fact that the power just needs to be reset on the player for the sound to come out? if the sound gets there flawlessly and then fails after a while, then why would the connectors being clean help?

"Secondly, how is cleaning it going to fix the fact that the power just needs to be reset on the player for the sound to come out? if the sound gets there flawlessly and then fails after a while, then why would the connectors being clean help?"

Because I heard that other people were having problems with dirty docking connectors.

"but what do you mean by continuity from plug to pinout?"

Its just checking the connection to see if it is complete. Using a electrical tester to test the physical connection between the L speaker rca cable and the L speaker pin on the docking connector. It obviously works part of the time anyway, since it works for 5 min at a time. I'm not an electrician, but I do have to work on electronics all the time at work. Loose connections can cause strange things to happen.

Sean

Wow, thats exatcly what mine does too.

I bought some new pairs of phono leads, swapped out the ones from the dockingcage. Still I have the left channel (front) out from time to time.
As you say, the only way to fix it is to pull the empeg out and put it backi in again.

I checked the internal connections in the Empeg too, and also noticed that the small
board under the drives was a bit 'wiggely', pushed it back in place. Can't say it helped much.

I have a liiiitle feeling that it came with 2.0, or it might hust be bad timing because I didn't have it before that. (In time, at least.)

Waiting for new my MKII.

TommyE

No, it's got nothing to do with 2.0, it was happening on my mk1 in the 1.0 days.

My only solution was to clean the docking connector regularly.