I'm not sure what the future of empeg is, but it appears to have reletively failed due to its high price. There's no question that it's a high quality player, but is it worth $1500? Maybe so, but how many people are willing to pay that much for an mp3 player? Probably less than empeg would like. So how could you make the empeg more worthy of $1500 without drastically increasing the cost of production? Are any of you empeg guys reading this? The answer is programming. It's free- it only takes time and creativity (assuming you have the knowhow). Some suggestions:

- a GPS or compatibility with a GPS- I see that somebody's already working on one

- able to hook up to a cellphone and log on the internet- check stocks, sports, headlines, etc.

- able to hook up certain electronic gauges for your car such as oil pressure, mpg calculations, rpm's- I don't know how possible (or cheap) this would be.

- a personal organiZer

- Everytime it boots up, have it chime "em-peg" - kind of like when you'd start Sonic the Hedgehog on the Sega and it would chime "Se-ga".

- Have it navigate and drive your car for you- it can't be that hard, can it?

Wow! Now that we have all the answers, restart production! I look forward to seeing your solutions to all of these suggestions.

Yz33d,

First of all do us a favor and search around the BBS; there are tons of discussions on this topic, particularly from "Rob" who is one of the HMFIC's at Empeg. He has been very open on this topic and the topic of features and future direction at SB. Actually, start by reading the FAQ at riocar.org and go from there.

Second, you're mixing apples and oranges here. As far as the pricing goes, its much more complicated than just "the price is too high". I don't think the Empeg team passed the crack pipe around and one fine day said lets charge $1500. Determining price is a trickly game between what your expected revenue , profit margins (which is a function of costs), and what the market is willing to bear. There are other factors as well, but these are the main one that companies base their go/no-go decisions. After you have considered all of that, then take a few hits on the crack pipe...
Also, I think there were other factors besides marketing and price that determined EOL of the Empeg. Again, check around the BBS.

As far as new features are concerned I think we'll see many more brilliant things from the Empeg Engineering team in the future. Stay tuned!!

--Andrew

Considering that there are currently 30,000 posts in the 'General' section alone, it's kinda hard to know where to start.

I still think that the only drawback to the empeg is the price (before the reduction). The price should drop over time, assuming that they will sell the empeg in the future, since it came way before its time. In fact, the price has dropped; look at what you could have gotten a 6GB for way back when and what you could get a 60GB for before the clearance.

I think you might not have been keeping up with recent events over the last, ooooh, 12 months or so.

1. Empeg was sold to SONICblue

2. The basic price was then $999

3. Followed by $699

4. We started work on the next generation

5. It was decided to move to a licencing model, to penetrate the 12V market

6. The Rio Car was EOL'd

7. Stock was cleared at $199

8. Isn't it exciting to be wondering what might be coming next!

Rob

A good place to start would be the FAQ over on http://www.riocar.org

or read robs summary above :-)

Yeah, you're right, I'm a beginner. Thanks for the history lesson. So are y'all working on Mark III or what?

I am desperately trying to search for the point of this post. How is the price of the Empeg a year ago relevant to any of what you're talking about here? Are you complaining about a supposed lack of development projects on the Empeg (even though one of them already exists, and another is in planning)?

When you say "you Empeg guys" are you talking about the designers and developers of the product and the player software (Empeg Ltd) or the many 3rd party developers? I hope it's the latter. If you're questioning why they didn't release a product that replaced a PDA, GPS, cell phone, and laptop computer, AND was the best car MP3 player at the time (and still is several years later) you're an ungrateful prick. If you're upset with the fact that these applications don't exist yet, why don't you fire up a Linux box and start hacking?

I apologize for being rude here, but these guys have developed the best car audio product in the world, and you're upset that it doesn't play MP3's AND jerk you off. Worst of all, you bought it for less than it cost to make.

4. We started work on the next generation

5. It was decided to move to a licencing model, to penetrate the 12V market

Doesnt that answer your question?

There will be no "Mark III" per se. Before you stick your foot in your mouth again and attack Empeg for not making a MkIII, please read the FAQ which will explain the whole situation.

True, over time prices drop. But, I would still be willing to pay the same $1800 2 yrs later for increased features and functionality. Take an already kick-ass product and make it even more kick-ass. Its all about "value proposition", perhaps another lesson learned from the Empeg experience. Every marketing machine needs to focus the potential customer on what you actually get for you hard earned $1800. Once you have a great product, its ALL about the marketing babee!!, not to mention solid distribution, post-sales support, etc.

Anyway, playing the niche market especially at the high end as the Empeg, is a tough game, very tough game.
--Andrew

yn0t_,

The price a of a 6GB model long ago is relevant, because I was demonstrating how the prices dropped. No, I am not complaining about any lacking of development projects; perhaps your imagination took over while reading my post.

When I said "empeg guys", I meant the actual guys at the empeg company, although I welcome and appreciate 3rd party developments. I did not question why they "didn't release a product that replaced a PDA, GPS, cell phone, and laptop computer". And no I'm not upset that my empeg doesn't drive your car for you or "jerk you off", else I wouldn't have bought it. I was only trying to make a few harmless suggestions. I hope this clears things up for you, yn0t_.

amaximow,

Yeah, I would have been willing to pay $1800, too- if I had the money. While the empeg is worth $1800 to me, you, and many other people, I don't think it is as practical to the general consumer. But there's no question that if you decided to shell out the big bucks on the empeg, you got the best of the best. It's like a Ferarri, while it's worth the money, if you had $300,000 you'd have more important things to spend it on than all on one car.

Are any of you empeg guys reading this? The answer is programming. It's free- it only takes time and creativity (assuming you have the knowhow).

How the hell do you work out that programming is free? I certainly get paid every month.

There's no question that it's a high quality player, but is it worth $1500?

Well, considering that it costs a significant fraction of that to make one (not including the software -- but that's free, right?), then in material costs alone, yes it is worth that.

Well once you have the software, you have it. It's free to manufacture per player. Or actually you'd take the amount of money you spent on programming and divide it by the number of players sold and you have the cost of programming per player, right?

Let me clarify something, when I say "worth" I mean per person. If someone is willing to pay $50,000 for a player than that player is worth $50,000 to that person. Certainly it was worth $1500 to everyone who paid that much for it. It was only worth $400 to me at this time (or probably a couple hundred higher) cause that's what I was willing to pay. That doesn't mean I appreciate my player less; I just had higher priorities, like getting a car. Yes, I bought a car player with no car.

For Yz33d, I have just one question at this time:

Do you own one of the car players?

To everyone else:

Jeez, go easy on the guy. If he doesn't have a player yet, forgive him for not knowing the history of the company and not having a complete appreciation for the product yet. If he does have a player, give him a few days to mess with it.

Yeah, I just got it in wednesday. 30 GB

a few harmless suggestions

Next time you make a few harmless suggestions, it'd be nice if you first read the FAQ to make sure you know what you're talking about.

And my imagination did NOT take over. You were saying that there was a lack of features on the Empeg, and it wasn't worth $1500 to the average consumer. Don't try to back off that point now that it's been made clear that's not the case. You said the Empeg failed due to its high price, as if they could have set the price lower and actually made a profit. Again, when you sell a product for less than it cost to make, it's pretty hard to make up for that on volume!

Incidentally, Empeg was not targeting the "average consumer" (whoever that is) because the average consumer is generally happy with a CD-MP3 player that plays CDR's. The product was way ahead of its time, cost a LOT to develop, hence the price. If you read up on the history of Empeg Ltd. before the SonicBlue takeover, I think you'd realize they did God's work just to get the product out given the resources, and the small batches they needed to make since it was such a niche market further complicated this.

Just enjoy your player, enjoy the fact that you got it at a bargain, and be patient about new whiz-bang features. In terms of shoddy marketing and what-not, what's done is done, and the product is what it is.

Yz33d, Roger is one of the main Empeg programmers. I'm not sure what your trying to gain from this post. But in no way is the software for this player free!

Have you compared 1.03 of the player/emplode software to 2.0b7, the difference is like an entirely NEW player! Do you think the software wrote itself! Maybe you should play with your new toy instead of talking trash about the team that original developed this kick ass player!

I had a Neo originally because I didn't feel the empeg was worth it, had I ever seen one I would NEVER have bought the crappy Neo.

Please find something constructive to talk about or don't say anything at all. And yes if you have the money for a Ferarri you probably have enough money to buy anything you desire.

Tony, when someone new posts "hi I'm new and I'd like to know why the Empeg doesn't have this and that" or whatever, we're generally very kind to them. However, yd33d came on and started two threads. One was discussing the historically high price of the player (like it matters now), and the other (this thread) says that the Empeg team could have somehow "saved the Empeg product" if they had included GPS, a personal organizer, and an OBD-II car diagnostic out-of-the-box. As if fingers could be snapped together to make that happen, and not raise the cost beyond what he said was too high of a price for the average consumer.

He also said he's been following the product since before SonicBlue took over, so I assumed he had a little more knowledge than your average new user. Apparently not the case, so yeah, I'll cut some slack. But I'm SICK of these people coming on and blasting Empeg for this and that when there is ZERO SonicBlue money going towards the Empeg now, yet we magically get new features from them. There have been at least five threads around here with people bellyaching about the beta releases and what-not, and it's gotten out of hand. And this guy wants GPS for free.

Or actually you'd take the amount of money you spent on programming and divide it by the number of players sold and you have the cost of programming per player, right?

OK. So if we'd sold more players, the programming would have been "cheaper". On that point, I'll agree. But it's by no means "free", no matter how you slice it.

In short, I think you're seriously underestimating the effort that went into programming the player application, and that hurts slightly. Hell, it hurts a lot.

Anyway, enjoy your new toy. I hope you have as much fun using it as we had developing it. Hopefully, in time, you'll see why some people think it's worth $1500.

Yes, I bought a car player with no car.

I'd been working at empeg for over a year before I even learnt to drive -- this is nothing new .

Fasttrack,

Exaclty where did I "talk trash" about the empeg? No, really, I'm curious to know.

yn0t_

Are you gonna keep putting words in my mouth after every post? Let me repeat what I said and see if you can understand the second time around.

I did not say there was a lack of features. I said that there could be more, which, as far as I know, Empeg plans to make more in the future. You can put more features on Lamborghini- it doesn't mean it's lacking. And if there won't be any more, I'll be perfectly happy.

I said the empeg "relatively failed", as in being discontinued by Rio. It did not fail in the quality department if that is what you are perceiving. And I did not say that they should set the price lower than it cost to make. That would be retarded. Speaking of retarded...nevermind.

And yes, I believe that many potential customers were turned off by the price, even if it cost that much to make. To deny this is to deny the truth.

To clear things up, I love my empeg, it's the highest quality player you can find, and I sincerely hope you can calm down and relax, yn0t_. No hard feelings.

Roger,

I guess I may have underestimated it a tad. The only thing I can program is Basic.

The real flaw in your logic is that these new features cost money because they need to be developed, and that would add cost. You can't make the things you were talking about happen and keep the cost of the unit the same. Some of the features of other Rio products will snake their way into the Empeg player. Others will be done on programmers' own time out of their own desire to see neat things appear on the Empeg.

As Roger has said above, you are seriously underestimating the cost that went into the Empeg car product, costs which ultimately led to, as you say, a product that couldn't appeal to the mass market. But it wasn't ever *intended* to appeal to the mass market. The one thing that made it appeal to the mass market was the giant sell-off, and obviously that wasn't done to sustain the product, rather, to decomission it. I am not denying any truth about the price, it definitely did turn a lot of people off, but there was no other choice in the matter. PLEASE tell me you understand that by now.

You're right, no hard feelings, but no matter how much you go back on what you said or accuse me of putting words in your mouth, your post was out of line considering the costs involved in developing the product. I'll chalk it up to a lack of understanding and hope that as you become more informed, you'll realize things happened the way they did for a reason.

Welcome to the BBS. Sorry we got off on the wrong foot.

My initial post was not intended to be malicious in any way. If anyone took it that way then so be it. See it as you like. Hey I'm an American, I believe in freedom of speech. But I still think the right to bear arms is more important, because if you have a gun then you can say whatever you want anyways. I'm still pushing for the 28th amendment though (for dyslexic folk)- 'The Right to Arm Bears'. But yeah, no hard feelings. We all love the empeg anyways....

I'm an american, and I would like to state that I believe in the right to arm bears.

The right to carry a gun (in the US) extends only to the protection of yourself (in your home) and against a tyrranical government. Not to say whatever you want with the backing of a threat..

God bless America.

God sneezed on america. God bless you God.

"The right to carry a gun (in the US) extends only to the protection of yourself (in your home) and against a tyrranical government. Not to say whatever you want with the backing of a threat.. "

But what are you gonna do about it if I have a gun? Well I guess you could call the cops.........if I don't shoot you first. Besides, I was only kidding.

i can't take it anymore! please to everyone that has contributed to this particular thread ---- just take a deep breath, remember how the empeg community is one of the more sophisticated ones out there, and let it go. I understand everyone's frustrations, but lets just drop this entire subject, tell people who have questions about the empeg that have already been discussed to go and read the FAQ, and just ignore the 'slander' --(if that is what it was). I know that everyone on this board is passionate about it, but that is no reason to lose one's cool.

ok then. can we try and be a bit more productive?

//matt

We did drop it, right before you got here.

Thanks for the voice of reason, though.

but that is no reason to lose one's cool

lose our ...never!

Heh.. right and ability are two different things..

Roger, it's rather simple and obvious that some people do not understand the value of intellectual property and how to account for the ongoing development costs of non-tangible property such as "software." This is nothing new. But for the newbies out there, IP and "software" are just about the bread and butter of the entire technological industry. It doesn't matter if you make calculators, graphics processors or routers.

The fact is that you have to pay for the creativity and "time" of the skilled minds that so many want to take for granted.

And if you think that's bullocks, then do some research into how much a few other non-material types charge for their knowledge (ie. lawyers)

Bruno

In reply to:

---

The fact is that you have to pay for the creativity and "time" of the skilled minds that so many want to take for granted.

---

How come so many people don't feel this way about the music on their players

I'd say an overwhelming majority of people on this board have ripped all or very nearly all of their own music to put on their empegs. I have maybe 5 songs that i've downloaded on my empeg... for which i will make no excuses.. =]

And how do you come to such a conclusion?? Show me.

I see many more questions on this BBS about ripping CDs than about downloading music with Limewire or Morpheus?
--Andrew

I agree I have read more questions about ripping than downloading. but when I have read messages or references to people downloading music I didn't see a reaction anything like there was to this thread. it is just pretty much ignored.

I think I got a couple people pissed off when I said it wasn't 'worth' $1500. I did not mean that it didn't cost that much to manufacture. I simply meant is it worth $1500 for the general public to buy one. But good point, msaeger.

Wow, this has been a pretty crazy thread. Although I am also pretty new to this board, let me note a few things.

I am a programmer, and I can honesly tell you hardware is more "free" at my company than programming. We generally just pass hardware along at cost so we get paid for our programming.

This really is a player with features you'll never be able to find anywhere else: Other car stereo manufacturers will never include half (not even half really) of the features we get. I don't know that you can even buy an equalizer like the one on this unit.

I am sure that the Empeg team could not have kept the unit from being EOL'd, but I do wonder why SB never advertised that I saw (I never saw the unit in Crutchfield). I don't know if more advertising $ could have kept the line producing, but I can't tell you how many broken hearts I have seen after I showed friends my unit and then told them it was discontinued. I told them they could still get them on E-bay, but most of them needed time to save up money. I'm just glad I got mine when I did.

I can also say I have paid the record companies every penny for all of the music on my empeg. While I think this may not universally be the case, I am absolutely positive that the record industry has made more money because of the empeg because we are all buying and listening to more music.

The music on my player comes from the 500 CDs sitting on my shelves. I assume your comment was directed to someone else specifically?

I will continue to buy music to rip and put on my empeg. I don't have much interest in downloading for anything but preview purposes - and really more to tide me over until I can actually get the album (most of the artists I listen to I can safely buy without having listened to a single track of the new album beforehand).

I do have about 1GB of downloaded music on my empeg right now. Most are probably remixes of tracks I have on bought discs. Stuff that I more than likely would not be able to find in stores. And of course some older tracks that I'll have to research and dig to find sources for - not everything is available on eBay at all times (many things have long-since been deleted from catalogs).

Bruno

Same here. Most of the downloaded tracks that are on my Empeg are tracks that can't be found in stores anymore. Or sometimes you'll find them on a compilation CD, but I'm not prepared to buy an entire (or double) CD for ONE song I like.

More than 80% of the songs that are on my Empeg are songs I've ripped/encoded myself from my own CD/vinyl collection. The remaining 20% I would've bought, if that was still possible.

Just keep in mind that "worth" is a very personal thing. Far too many factors outside even whimsical fancy weigh in as well - geography, income, career/job, etc.

If you want to break it down to statistics and numbers then you can do that as well, but then you're looking at the "worth" to SONICblue. Figure how much it costs them to produce the hardware, stock it, move it, etc. How much they pay to the people that are involved with stocking and moving it. How much they had to pay to acquire empeg. The salaries of the empeg employees (we'll ignore the rest of SB for now) and their benefits packages. Then packaging costs, insurance (most people forget about insurance - I'm not talking about shipping insurance), operational costs for the electronic ordering system... Now how many players have been sold? Care to take guesses how much the players are actually "worth" now?

Since the product has been EOL'd, it is safe to say that the empeg retail business was NOT "worth" it to SONICblue.

When the empeg was selling at $999 for a 10GB model there were other solutions available at a lesser price. Each with their own trade-offs and amount of aftermarket modification and work that needed to be done. Some with development work needed by the consumer (DIY things like the PJRC). At the empeg price drop to $699 I can honestly say that it wasn't "worth" it to get a PJRC for $150 considering all the work I'd still have to do with it.

There's no question to that a $1500 product will not fly in mobile car audio. Not at the consumer level anyway (and that just happens to be the only market to move this type of product into - I don't know how many military contracts you're going to get for an in-dash MP3 product for example, or airline deals, or any other niche, etc..) But this goes beyond a simple question of "worth" - so this whole thread is pretty much based on material that ends up being inflammatory simply because of the way it's written and because some people aren't looking at the much larger picture.

Now, can we all just make sure SB sell out of all their magically re-appearing stock? Send a message to them and everyone else, that in-car mobile jukeboxes are a very hot ticket. Let the marketing people figure out how they want to position their future products.

Bruno

it was not directed at you sorry if you thought it was

yah right, i throw my thread out there and get flamed 19 ways from friday.. and most of it was by empeg employees.. all i did was state my opinion, just like this guy. when you have pisse doff customers, calling them stupid, telling them not to put their foot in their mouth, telling them to RTFF, and so forth is hardly appropriate. In fact i would say that some specific members of this board have been WAY out of line from a professional role with the tone they have taken with people that invested a lot of money within a product developed by THEIR company.

Little hint guys, don't bite the hand that feeds.

I think alot of people underestimate exactly how much money it costs to develop something. Working in a software shop, I'm just now realizing how much it costs; it's expensive.

-mark

I think our labor rates are around $118/hr or so for software developers. We buy hardware like its going out of style, but software we take seriously.

At least, thats what I've seen. I'm not a manager though, just a lab rat

The answer is programming. It's free- it only takes time and creativity (assuming you have the knowhow). Some suggestions:

Surely you jest.

Nearly two years ago (see here) Rob V. said there was more than eight man-years of development time in the player software. That was when the empeg was a little over a year into its development. So it would not be unreasonable to guess that by now there are at least 15 man-years of development time in the software. If you figure a talented programmer (and the guys@empeg are among the most talented in the world -- this is why the SoB group bought them!) is worth, say, $75,000 per year you have $1.1 million in direct salary software expense. And it would not be unreasonable to guess that direct salary expense is perhaps a third of what it really cost to develop the software -- after all, those programmers worked in a building that cost rent, utilities, taxes, etc. They used hardware that had to be purchased and upgraded. Somewhere along the line were the expenses that the employer contributes (don't know how England works, but there must be some equivalent to social security taxes, health insurance, etc.) So figure over $3 million in software expenses over the years.

Hey, guess what -- they sold 3,000 players. $3 million divided by 3,000 players comes to about $1000 per player just for the software.

That programming is NOT free.


[OT]
Now, factor in that most of those 3,000 players sold for less than $400.. That even at the reduced price of $699 (less than the cost of the hardware alone) the players were not selling. We can complain, criticize, and castigate Sonic Blue all we want -- but the EOL decision was absolutely and completely inevitable.

Unquestionably the empeg was and still is the best product of its type in the world. Unfortunately the market niche that can afford the very best is too small to be commercially viable.
[/OT]

tanstaafl.

The answer is programming. It's free- it only takes time and creativity (assuming you have the knowhow).

OK, I thought you were serious untill I read the last two of your suggestions. Just in case I will put here a part of my intended response:

Guys@empeg, all professional programmers on the board, Bill Gates and Larry Ellison will doubtlessly greet the news that programming is free!

Speaking of Ferarri: comparing it to empeg is not fair. Empeg is an order of magnitude better than the next guy (at double the price - originally). The only area where Ferarri (or any other 'supercar') holds the same or better price/performance ratio as 'ordinary' sports cars is the owner's ego. $300000 supercar is not six times better (in terms of performance and fun to drive) than $50000 'ordinary' sports car; more realistic figure would be perhaps 30% or 50%. With 'supercars' we are deep into area of dimminishing returns; empeg is far from that. Each cent of almost $2000 I paid is covered by features, ease of use, expandability... Of course, it does not mean I did not have troubles scrapping together those $2000

So, empeg is not simply Ferarri of MP3 players, it is Ferarri at the price of stock Corvette (or recently second-hand Yugo ).

And this guy wants GPS for free.

And the funny thing is, he will probably get it (thanks to empeg's original decision to go with an open platform and the number of top-notch hackers who considered empeg worth those $1500).

I agree. I would be glad to have ANY classic sports car. But I can't think of any other car mp3 player I would want.

Again, as I said before, saying that empeg costs $1500 to produce and sell, that it is worth $1500, and that I can afford it at $1500 are three totally different things. I could just barely afford it, but I never thought it was not worth it.

As for music piracy, I think that this board overall supports reasonable mixture of 'musicians have to eat' and fair use. So, guys who admit at having large downloaded MP3 collections were let know that most people here don't look at that favorably (but we generally avoid flame wars). Most people seem to think that mixes one of our members produces could be tolerated as 'fair use', and almost all are very strongly opinoinated concerning RIAA attempts at restricting our right to use CDs we bought as we please.

Well... I dunno if it'll be free, at least the map data will probably cost us, and I would think Kim would want to charge a reasonable fee for all the work he's put into his GPS software. But free would certainly be nice!

I had impression that other (Sven's ?) project is intended to be open sourced (though I won't mind paying a reasonable price for empeg/GPS). Freeware maps seem to be a problem, true....

I am just reading the thread you are refering to, and I don't have impression you were flamed at all. If anything, others (Rob included) were more measured with their choice of words.

If you take a look at the header of this page, you will see it is the unofficial board, making it possible for Hugo, Rob & Co. to participate without having to act as PR people.

Rob (and others) just asked for distinction to be made between horrible Digital River e-store and S|B ordering support and post-sales support being provided by David. Both are second to none, but with different polarity :-) It is really not fair to paint David (and Rob, Hugo and others - it's often Hugo who saves fried players) with the same brush as, IIRC, Tammy from S|B customer care.

Rob also repeated several times that license cost is not what keeps WMA support from our hands (it's obviously M$ 'anti-piracy' nonsense), and asked to be at least aknowledged, it not believed. Not too much, I would say....

Finally, let me note that one of the nice features of this board and its members is that flame wars, as rare as they are, tend to die down quickly and be forgotten.

Cheers!

i see what you are saying, but making a reference to other posts which i never read, well i guess i misinterpreted.. i NEVER READ that wma was not here for any reason, i ever read anything on it...cept a few people asking when and teh response of soon.

the whole thing doesn't really matter i guess.. i think that tech support did a fine job for me when i needed it.. all other aspects though, presales/sales support e-store etc, need a serious overhauling. regardless, i hope rio does succeed, as i said before..

bonzi, how much something is "worth" and how much people can afford are very closely related. Take someone for example working in a sweatshop in Communist China. They may be be the best damn shoemaker an employer could find, yet their only getting paid the equivalent of 50 cents a day, while there is someone in America who can't make shoes half as well making over ten times that amount in one hour. So why is the better employee getting payed less? Because of the situation. They are only 'worth' 50 cents a day because there are numerous other chinese folk willing to take that guys place in a heartbeat, because it's 'relatively' good money to them. Supply and demand.

As for the ferrari analogy, you're only using price/performance for the ferrari. If you were to use the same standards in judging the empeg, that means excluding visuals, sleek look of the player, etc. The main difference that I see is that there are lots of supercars to choose from but only one empeg.

ps- Is there anyone here who would NOT take a GPS for free if offered one? Anyone?

Here Here! Sales is a joke here in the US. They don't know their product and haven't a clue about inventory. I hope they succeed but I hope they improve their front end.

bonzi, how much something is "worth" and how much people can afford are very closely related.

I agree in principle. However, "worth" of the product is judged by other products of the similar kind in the same market. "Affordability" is individual matter. Clearly, product has to be affordable to someone, but given the amount of money spent on absurdly expensive status symbol items that should not be a problem for several thousand empeg units worldwide.

So, empeg was always worth the price for me (I compared it to other expensive audio and computing toys I had or wished to have). However, the first time my number came, I deffered because at that moment I could not afford it. OTOH, even if I could easily afford McLaren F1 or something from Sultan of Brunei garage sale, I would not buy it, because I could get almost as much fun (and much less unwanted attention) for five or ten times less money. For me those supercars are not worth their price, regardless of (theoretical) affordability. Hence my disagreement with comparing empeg to Ferarri:

I dunno. I could have a _LOT_ of fun in a McLaren F1. Well, until I go careening off a cliff I guess

The price drop really lowered the floor here as well, I see.

I guess new members with big egos have difficulty remaining civil when they are told that the answers to their many misconceptions and questions are addressed in the FAQ or in other easily located posts on the BBS.

Here's a tip: as a new member to any BBS, its probably a good idea to read as much as you can and be meek until you're up to speed.

I've not seen any flare ups on this BBS until a few hot-heads picked up players cheap and couldn't understand why traffic doesn't stop to answer their questions.

This is the best resource you've got for the empeg, boys, and its great -- not a good idea to go alienating yourselves so early. Find another BBS if you want to grandstand, flame, etc.

Like I said, its been clear sailing until the price drop lowered the bar.

You talking to me?

err... yeah.

you only registered here this month. Some of us have been here since may '99, before the Mk1s were released and have covered most angles of development. There is also a small amount of resentment when someone pops up and sprouts how to change everything. If you want answers to most of your suggestions read all the posts. If you map it out chronologically, it's obvious that this thing didnt pop up overnight and many years of programming have been put into it.

Just for a hoot, install version beta 6. It wont work with your current player, probably only the Mk1 but I have it on the original issue CD for you if you like. The one with the label stuck on by hand, before the new empeg office had any furniture. loved that job didn't you Rob?

So when you tell us all how things should be, think about how long the rest of us have been here.

Like I said, its been clear sailing until the price drop lowered the bar

Agreed. I'm not citing any specific examples. But, the good 'ol signal noise ratio has been a'shiftin'.

Come on, chill down, guys (some Café del Mar, perhaps? )! While we did have a few instances of posts annoying for the sake of being annoying and a lot of questions from newbies who ignore advice to RTFF first (and are even irritated by repeated suggestion to really do RTFF), newbies will learn, and 'arsonists' (if there are indeed such people here) will get bored. We will end up will more interesting people to discuss proper ways of eating Oreos with

I've not seen any flare ups on this BBS until a few hot-heads picked up players cheap and couldn't understand why traffic doesn't stop to answer their questions.

There were two or three mild ones: about open source licensing (somebody from the board 'reported' empeg guys to some OSS hot shot - I don't remember who - as being non-compliant; after some bitter words everything ended up by empeg sticking to the word of GPL license, not only spirit, which they always did) and about promised features being late. Nothing serious, really. I don't think what we have now is serious, either.

"There were two or three mild ones: about open source licensing (somebody from the board 'reported' empeg guys to some OSS hot shot - I don't remember who - as being non-compliant; after some bitter words everything ended up by empeg sticking to the word of GPL license, not only spirit, which they always did)"

Yeah, Jesus Christ even stopped by to put in his comments on that one.

Right, those were the days...

Don't mean to be a whiner. It's just tough now that the traffic has increased 5 fold or whatever it is... to have to spend so much more time reading posts just too keep up, and for them only to sound like they are coming from 14 year old hot shot wanting to pick a virtual fight where they would be hiding in a corner in real life. We've all been spoiled by the quality of this BBS... as i've never seen anything anywhere near the level of overall greatness and genuine comradery of it. New users here need to respect the community and treat those who've been here forever as elders (and i'm not talking about myself by any means). I don't wanna be saying "those were the days" quite yet.

Loren, I have seen your photos: you, an elder?!

Seriously, I agree, but, apart from too large volume (which is slacking down recently), don't see many problems.

I was thinking about making a comment on the s/n ratio dropping down closer to /. levels, but refrained myself. I think we all see it anyway.

Haha, i'm definitely NOT an elder =]. My point was, when i started on this board, i did a LOT of lurking just to see how things worked around here before i even registered in Aug. 2000. And when i did post, i did so humbly knowing i was coming into a place where nearly everyone knew more than me about the empeg. Everyone has something to contribute, but the key is doing so respectfully.

You're correct... there haven't been that many problems... it's just that the few small hotheads and know it alls stand out greatly from the rest and seem magnified. Again... i don't intend on making a big deal out of any of it. In fact, i should just obey my own rule of ignoring the annoying, because recognizing, acknowledging, and inciting only prolong the annoyance.

And Tim... if this place ever gets as bad as /. where you have to browse at 2 just to get anything decent... i'll be creating a secret society.

I actually had an ID < 15,000 on /., but haven't used it in a couple of years because it got so bad

anyhoo, back on topic, I think the futrue for the team formerly known as empeg looks pretty good.

Did any of you people actually read my post? Was I really trashing empeg? Was I really complaining? Was I inciting arguments? Or was I just simply bringing up a few ideas I had? So what if I didn't read every letter ever documented on the empeg? What's the BBS for? Just to attack people who don't have an "MKI" and haven't had the chance to read the FAQ 500 times? Tell me one thing I said that was out of line. Give me a quote. I didn't know stating ideas on future empeg applications was so wrong.

I don't want to post here again as I feel that it might sour your experience with empeg. I don't have anything against having dreams and ideas about what it could be used for but my impression from your first post was you were preaching from on high about how things could have been better. Some of those ideas would have been quite at home in the wish list forum. It was felt your were speaking out of ignorance.

The riocar is an amazing unit. Saying it should have had even more features was a bit hurtful.

I was thinking about making a comment on the s/n ratio dropping down closer to /. levels, but refrained myself. I think we all see it anyway.

Slashdot levels? Oh my goodness, no. Things have gone downhill a little, but I haven't seen a single goatse.cx link or ASCII middle finger yet.

I think that as the members of this new (and, sadly, last) crop of newbies become experienced power users, we will see the S/N ratio and the general quality of posts go back to pre-fire-sale levels. These newbies aren't in any way less intelligent than the regulars here, they just haven't figured out that most of what they need to know is out there, and if they ask a question nicely here, it will be answered.

As for the aforementioned newbies who come in with guns-a-blazing attacking various segments of the Empeg community, they will probably be recipients of a few bitchslaps. Either they'll figure out how to state their case in a less confrontational manner, or they'll piss someone off enough to get banned. To my knowledge nobody's ever had to be banned from this BBS, so we're a pretty tolerant lot.

Besides I think there's enough people who care enough about this BBS that it won't ever approach Slashdot lameness. We just need to be patient and help all the new folks out, welcome the vast majority of them who make sense, and tell any idiots among them to go take a hike. Pretty simple, no?

The riocar is an amazing unit. Saying it should have had even more features was a bit hurtful.

I don't think it was hurtful for him to say "I think the product would have been more successful if X", which is essentially what he said. Everyone has a right to express an opinion.

I just think that sometimes people jump onto a BBS or mailing list and post their opinions too quickly before researching a little more. I think he's simply incorrect in his opinion of what X is. Knowing how the product was developed, knowing what it took in terms of manhours and hard-costs to make, I don't think they made any bad choices putting it together. If he'd known the history or spent much time with the unit, he might have had a different opinion.

To answer your questions in order...

Yes.
Nope.
Could be taken that way.
Could be taken that way.
Yeap.
That would be damn near impossible, but reading the entire FAQ isn't that difficult, nor is searching for keywords for topics you are about to post.
A lot of things.
Nope, and it only takes once.
No quotes, you just come off as cocky. Anyone who's argumentative and doesn't even have balls enough to give their real name or info in their profile < generalization > usually doesn't have much to contribute < /generalization >

I've got no beef, my only point is that you should respect this group and not dive in head first. the end.

Actually that one ended up with us demonstrating to Debian that they weren't GPL compliant either

Rob

Agreed, Tony.

People, we will do more to hurt this community by giving an impression of a bunch of grumpy old elitists (and thus turning bona-fide newbies away) than by tolerating (or ignoring, if we are not tolerant enough) posts or posters not entirely to our liking. I won't be calling names, but there were occasions previously when even some of the most valuable contributors here have shown signs of a short fuse for a post or two. So what? It's all among friends, no?

Posts about S/N ratio tend to lower the very ratio they talk about, so I will try to make this one my last one on the topic.

Once more, wellcome all new empeg owners (and do RTFF )!

lol

Ditto - I have probably downloaded 20 songs from bands I had never heard of or new albums and played them on my empeg (along with 2800 from my own CD's) to see how they sound. The ones I dislike get discarded, and the songs I like prompt me to order the CD from somewhere - even when it's tricky: I had to get a friend in Australia to hunt around for an Australian Crawl CD from the late 80's (sounds like INXS but more so)

See T-fab knows what's going on.

"doesn't even have balls enough to give their real name or info in their profile" - loren

Ha, you crack me up.

I think one thing that has been a good feature of the BBS is that with a small community, it's easy to feel that we all know each other, and can throw around lighthearted cracks that sometimes appear to newcomers to be actual flames. Said newcomers try to use the same tone, and are surprised when it's not received well.

It's something that I've seen happen in a few communities (IRL and virtual) when they've expanded; some have done better than others at coping with the influx. It depends on a lot of things, including the rate of growth, the willingness of the newbies to lurk and pick up the vibe, the willingness of the established crowd to welcome and educate the new folks - but not limited to just these things, of course.
In short,

• New members - don't be put off by people's flippant styles, but don't expect to "try it on" before you're well-known
• Old members - don't get too wound up by people who don't know the conventions and etiquette around here; take time to gently point them in the right direction (like real-life police, net.police can be either authoritarian or supportive...)

I downloaded all of my songs!!! HAHAHAHAHA!!!
Metallica eat my shorts!!

j/k I will not lie If I hear a song on the radio or MTV I will go and download it, unless it's already in my extensive collection.
I did go and download all of my favorite songs after my CD collection was stolen out of my car (along with my stereo system.

I must've replaced my NiN collection about 2 or 3 times from being stolen - all legally purchased. I guess its a function of how much you really enjoy the artist and want to support them. A bunch of the CDs I've had to replace were imports, at $25/cd or $50 for a cd set (all bought locally). Since I had the entire collection (up to the 'Closer to God' import), I guess it means I liked them enough to pay for the replacements. *shrug* to each his own I guess.

See T-fab knows what's going on.

I just think that sometimes people jump onto a BBS or mailing list and post their opinions too quickly before researching a little more. -Tony

Yeap, he does know what's going on.

Ha, you crack me up.

What's funny about that? I still don't see your name.

I'll stop so as not to come off as an elitist, but it wouldn't hurt to show a sliver or two of respect for those who've been around way longer and know way more than you, and i still don't speak of myself when i say that.

Truce.

About a year ago I got the Neo rather than the empeg simply because I thought they were essentially the same thing, but the neo was cheaper. boy was I wrong!

I was wrong on all accounts. The Neo completely sucks. It's not even worth the materials it's made of in my opinion. I would have never bought one if I could have compared the 2 in real life. Not only that, but the Neo ended up being *more expensive* than the empeg. The Neo itself was only $400, but I had to put in about $500-$600 more just to get the damned thing installed; not to mention all the time I invested (I made a rough estimate of about 30-40 hours; even at minimum wage that's about $200).

Compare that to my empeg that just worked right out of the box, no fuss, no hidden expenses (well, except perhaps for an $8000 tuner on ebay). The empeg is certainly worth $999 (how much it cost when I was deciding between it and the neo), possibly even $1500.

I think the only thing the empeg guys could have done to get me to buy one back then isn't to add new features, but rather to convince me that it really is worth the price. Most car audio people do that by setting up in-store demos, but I suppose empeg doesn't exactly have the resources to do so. They could have also explained why the neo isn't really worth it, but that's not very nice marketing (and may be illegal, I dunno).

Unfortunately, the advantages of the empeg over the neo can't really be put in to words. It's just something you have to experience.
(yes, I'm very bitter about my neo. I put (almost) all my money into it, and got (almost) nothing out of it. If the prices of the empeg hadn't dropped, I would have never been able to get one. I count my lucky stars for that.)

I think the only thing the empeg guys could have done to get me to buy one back then isn't to add new features, but rather to convince me that it really is worth the price.

Exactly. And how do they do that?

MARKETING. The one thing we all expected to see when the team/product was purchased by Sonic|blue. Something that, as far as I can tell, didn't happen.

That's the point I was trying to make here.

Unfortunately, the advantages of the empeg over the neo can't really be put in to words. It's just something you have to experience.

Great, another unintentional Matrix reference...

I can see myself in what you're saying. All I knew is that I wanted an excellent stereo system in my new car because I can't live without music. And, I knew I wanted an mp3 player. That's all.

I saw the empeg and I thought it was great, but too expensive, and I had a lot of questions to ask before deciding if that was just a high price, or if that was a too high price So I sent an email to Empeg ltd., believing I would get a reply in weeks, with some pre-made standard text in it.

I got a reply in few hours, maybe just one, if I remember well. It was by a human being, not by an automatic response system. I got totally meaningful and sound answers to my questions. We mailed each other more for a while, and in two days (could have been few hours if I didn't have a life besides reading emails ) I was more than convinced that the empeg was exactly what I wanted, and that the price was GOOD! It was immediately clear that this small company was really amazing, made up by ppl "like you and me" who liked what they were doing and did it well. Really well.
No need to say that support I had since that time on has never - never - disappointed me. Whether that was a credit card problem or a knob that needed to be replaced. And all this happened way before I ever decided to enter this forum.

So, you can imagine how happy I was with empeg after I did enter here, and the empeg itself got enriched by such a great community and all that it implies, whether it is software of just ideas or help.

Now, by just talking to them, I got convinced. If I had read this forum, it would have been even easier to convince me. So, I agree with Tony, REAL marketing would have helped to sell empegs, definitely. You really need to UNDESRTAND what empeg is all about.

Good analysis there, t-fab.

So how did everyone here first hear about the empeg? My first encounter happened one day when I was pondering mp3 players, seeing them being sold everywhere and low and behold, I decided I wanted one for my car. So I started my search on the world wide web, but found nothing but cd-r players. That is, until I clicked on a lonely little link on the bottom of the list that read "empeg". The heavens sang that day, when the photons emitting from the monitor in the beautiful shape of the empeg had at last reached my retinas for the very first time. (this was probably a year or so ago)

I first heard about Hugo's mp3mobile project in the summer of 1998 whilst chatting in the #mpeg3 channel on EFnet, which I had been frequenting since discovering Winplay3 in late 1996. Some dude posted the link in the channel and we were all oohing and ahhing at the one-line text display of the titles and stuff (not to mention Hugo's chrome shift knob!) It was nothing like the Empeg, in that I think the computer was mounted in the trunk/boot and I think it was a Pentium rather than an ARM chip, but the ideas were there.

My first thought was "I should build something like that" but as the months progressed, I learned that he was going to release a commercial version of the product, so I figured I'd wait on that. Well, we all know how things have progressed since then.

I joined this BBS in mid-1999 when the Mk1 was just about to be released. I lacked the necessary funds to buy it, but I followed things closely as a lurker until the Mk2 came about. I always try to stay away from first-generation products in any category so the kinks can get worked out, and the Mk2 fulfilled all of my wishes, and then some.

Two years later, it's still cutting-edge.

Ah, memories.

"Yz33d, you are being charged with eight counts of improper cockiness and 1 count of unnecessary use of a poll. How do you plead?"

Not guilty.

"You have the right to a trial by jury."

Ahh...Winplay3...that takes me back. I had that running on my 486 (just barely). Back then I was still mostly into the MOD/S3M scene. Winamp didn't even exist yet. And you really had to search out MP3s.

Yeah MOD's and S3M's were my bread and butter in my BBSing high school days, circa 1991-1994. Me and my buddies strung together some cool techno/rap S3M's in our copious spare time.

WinPlay3 was an absolute dog, didn't support long filenames, and was uglier than sin, but it was the first piece of software that I took one look at and said "this kinda thing is gonna be huge if enough people find out about it." I wish I was smart enough back then to go register the MP3.com domain or something like that, but at the time, my main concerns were chasing women, consuming large quantities of beer, and trying to go to enough classes to maintain passing grades.

Well, I have to say, that is definitely reasonable doubt.

Out of interest, I wrote the first MOD player for the ARM processor, back in 1988

Hugo

Look on the bright side, the American judicial system requires unanimous voting for a conviction. So you're a free man!

Hugo, you've got enough people around here tooting your horn that you don't need to toot it yourself!

Incidentally, what are you doing on the BBS at midnight England time? It's almost like you're waiting for something big to happen............

Nah, just got back from a NSX meet in london and was doing a bit of catching up before bed

Wasn't trying to toot - my MOD player wasn't the best one that came out by a LONG shot, but it was the first

Hugo

Damn... So no beta tonight Oh well...

Yeah MOD trackers were fun.. I remember struggling to get the most out of those precious 4 tracks... Then when S3M's came out and there were like 16 tracks, it was miraculous... Then people would cheat and sample entire drum loops such that they were the exact length of a measure of the song... At that point you might as well have just sampled the whole song... Oh wait, that's what MP3's are..

Beta 8 was released to the Alpha team last night. If it works OK it should go public early next week.

Rob

So how many pints do I have to order you guys at Wrestlers to earn a spot on the alpha team?

A firkin each, and a packet of pork scratchings (to share).

Rob

Greetings!

Could you translate those measurements for the folks in the US? I am vaguely familiar with the term firkin, but pork scratchings sounds a bit ominous...

http://www.porkscratchingworld.com/

So what are the main differences in beta 8?

They've fixed the bugs

So what are the main differences in beta 8?

They finally got the World Peace and End to Famine patches completed.

They're temporarily disabled, though, due to licensing issues with the original vendor.

Osama finish beta 8 bug virus today. Waiting for empeg to log main PC on net.

Ok, this is pretty offensive.

Calvin

Not because I mind people trying to bash the empeg (even in such an infantile manner), but because the image and name used are in such poor taste, would you mind "moderating" that (obvious) post into oblivion and changing the password on the account? Don't just delete it because someone else could just recreate the name.

Bruno

but because the image and name used are in such poor taste, would you mind "moderating" that (obvious) post into oblivion and changing the password on the account?

Even if I could do that, I wouldn't. The person using the account is someone we all know. He is our friend, he is a good person, and he was simply being funny. He is a long-time empeg owner, and he is one of the biggest supporters of this community.

In terms of "taste", it's no different than when JC was posting, or when I posed as Rex Oah for a little fun. Personally, I found the posts hilarious, even before I checked out who the poster was.

I think that if you knew he was a BBS regular, you might have felt differently about the posts. It's like... if a stranger stops you on the street and tells you an off-color joke , you might find it offensive. But if your best friend tells you the same joke, you would laugh. It's merely a question of context.

I knew he was "one of us" right away. Even before I checked out the source, I could see, both from his carefully-prepared BBS profile, and from the comments in the posts, that this was a knowledgeable empeg owner and a longtime BBS regular. So maybe that's why I laughed and you got offended.

But as the saying goes, "Humor is like a frog. You can dissect it, but the thing dies in the process."

Naw, I just generally don't find BinLaden stuff funny. Especially when people mis-spell his name. It's USAMA. With a "U"

Now, the JC stuff was totally fine. I mean, you can still blame everything that goes wrong in the world on him or his dad (who might very well be one and the same), but you can't prove it.

Bruno

All I really saw this as was another 20 posts I had to read through to catch up with the BBS this evening... I guess one man's garbage is another man's gold.

tfabris: I think that if you knew he was a BBS regular, you might have felt differently about the posts.

I'm not so sure (sorry!). A nom de plume is an honored tradition that I personally cherish, I have probably annoyed in excess of 320 people with some of my posts, and, Bob knows, fully 80 percent of the jokes I've ever told went down faster than the Andrea Doria,.... but .... I would rate U/Osama as a miscalculation from a comedic perspective.

I have to agree with yn0t_ on this one.

I don't know.... He is funny, though somewhat repetitve... OTOH, the traffic volume we get here is insane without that kind of posts, and apparently some people find the pseudonym choice offensive even when it is used to mock the caveman. Then again, most of us will rise the entropy of the board here and there with a joke (and I find it good, of course).

So, I don't know...

Ah, good.

Someone else has started a post about the future of the Rio Car, saving me the trouble of doing so. So I read through the entire history of the thread just to see who had said what and whether my ideas have already been said. And it seems they haven't.

In reply to:

---

So how did everyone here first hear about the empeg?

---

Oh, looking at Hugo's mp3mobile project, and then all of a sudden it had this link to a new company called empeg that would make you a player if you registered your name in a queue. I was, from memory, somewhere around 293, and now own Mark 1 player 61. I've sort of given up reading the BBS; not being able to keep up with the volume of traffic, overall being quite happy with the features I've got, and having a brother who reads more regularly than I do :-) I also produce a DJ-style mix every once in a while.

I've been thinking about the whole business model of the empeg, and I believe there's a way it could have worked. I think it should have been obvious right from the start that the advertising (such that it was - internet searches) would never keep the sales volume high enough to justify continuous production. In this I agree with Tony, and say that part of Sonic|Blue's carelessness was to grossly underestimate how much advertising they needed to do to break into the market and get a reasonable turnover going.

The market is there - we're evidence of it. Pioneer and Sony producing high-end, 'high-quality' car head units that cost more and offer less is evidence of it. The many stories from Hugo, Rob and others at !empeg of customised installs and special requests is evidence that there are people willing to pay whatever necessary to get exactly what they want.

The other mistake, and I think this is a mistake that has a long history, is to assume that the empeg / Rio Car would be a consumer item. That's like saying a Volvo S40, or BMW M3, is a consumer item. Sure, they're not the ultimate (I was going to say 'Rolls Royce' :-)) of the car world, but the people that buy them are people that have decided that what they want is that car. On the other hand, they are not people who just throw money at the problem and make it go away; they want bang for buck, they've read the spec sheets, and they have decided. (For my part, I'd go a Nissan 200SX, but that's because they're faster and sportier and, perhaps, a bit rarer too).

Now, when a person orders an M3, they don't usually expect to just go down to the showroom and find one with exactly the features they want sitting there. This is the other difference between a specialist item and a consumer one; availability. And I think that it's possible to sell the empeg in this kind of model: tell the customer "put your name down on the list, and when we've got enough orders to make it commercially viable to do a run, you get your player." The easy thing about this is that the only thing that changes in the hardware is the hard drive size - a consumer component that is fitted specially anyway.

The advertising problem - getting continued market - is never going to go away in whatever business model you propose. And certainly the indications I see on the BBS say that there was simply too little interest generated in the right media to keep sales running. And I'd be willing to bet that any other problems people propose with this model are also shared, or worse, with the models already tried.

And it seems that my main question ("What's Sonic|Blue planning for a new car player?") will continue to remain unanswered for a while yet :-)

Have fun,

Paul

Thanks, Paul, for bringing this thread back on-topic.

I'm not sure that SonicBlue necessarily underestimated the amount of marketing needed. Maybe they knew exactly how much would be needed but were simply unable or unwilling to deliver it. I don't know how the company works internally, but I can envision a lot of scenarios in a large company where even the best-laid-plans go awry.

I imagine they thought dilbert comics were a hand drawn documentary and instruction guide.
Lord forbid the empeg team to become PHBs.

I think you hit the nail rid into the lid there regarding the willingness of marketing. Intellect Incorporation was a higher priority than Product Incorporation.

I'm not sure that SonicBlue necessarily underestimated the amount of marketing needed. Maybe they knew exactly how much would be needed but were simply unable or unwilling to deliver it.

Exactly right.

But I would take it a step further... NO amount of marketing would have made the empeg a commercially viable product. When you consider the software development costs, and the actual cost of materials and construction of the unit, it is unlikely that even at $1000 apiece there would have been enough profit margin to support continued production.

Now, I know that this is absolute heresy, but I stand by it: the average car owner would not not want an empeg player in his car if you gave it to him for free. Try telling your Aunt Martha that she needs this great music player in her car -- and all she has to do is have a computer in her house, purchase and learn to use ripping and encoding software, be willing to drag her player into the house and connect up a bunch of cables and spend an hour or so every time she buys a new CD, not to mention spending hundreds of hours putting her existing CD collection into the empeg, oh, and lets not forget hundreds of dollars to buy an amplifier and pay some ham-fisted cretin at the local stereo shop to tear her Buick all to pieces in order to run wires and cables all through it... All this so she can listen to a few tunes when she drives to church on Sunday, utilizing a user interface so powerful and complex it takes a remote control with 24 buttons on it to operate. Yeah, right.

I think instead she would prefer to put the shiny round thing into the slot in the dash and turn the knob thingy to make it loud or quiet and be done with it.

This is not to say that the empeg/RioCar is not the absolutely best and greatest car stereo device ever built. But it's not for everyone. It's not even for one one-thousandth of one percent of everyone. And unless you are selling Ferraris or Bentleys, penetrating just .001% of the potential market is not a recipe for commercial viability.

tanstaafl.

Is the name derivative from arabic script? Or was it originally written using a romanized letter format?

Calvin

Good point. I hope they don't burn you at the stake like they did to me.

> the average car owner would not not want an empeg player in his car if you gave it to him for free.

I agree with that. Hell, my mother was like "Well, that's nice, but will it play tapes?" I'm working on her though...

It is definantly for that small subset of people where music lovers and computer geeks combine. I think it is perhaps just ahead of it's time though, MP3s and the gadgets to play them are becoming more popular every year. The music industry will eventually get with the program and MP3s will be sold over the net. It will be just as easy to get MP3s as it is to get discs and people will be more computer literate and willing to deal with the issues involved in transferring music.

How long? Who knows, perhaps as long as a generation. We'll all be old farts telling our grandkids about the day we got our first mp3 car player and they will be saying "Yeah, so what's the big deal?"

Re: the advertising problem.

I think getting it shipped in the usual channels would have been the key.

The sort of people that are going to spend a grand on a head unit are already poping into the their local car audio store to check out the latest units. Just having the empeg on display there would expose it to a lot of potential customers.

And the empeg is the sort of things that has to be seen to be appreciated. I tell people that i just spent a grand on a mini computer that acts as a stereo and plays mp3s and they say, "you payed HOW much for what?" Then you sit them down in the car and show them how it works, and they start to understand that i didn't just blow a huge wad of money on some computer geek gizmo.

Having it in the store on display so that people can get a proper look at it would help establish that it is worth the money.
And having it on display would allow people choosing between a neo and and empeg to realise that there is a huge difference between the two.

It was on display in about 2/3rds of Car Toys stores for several months. We provided some pretty good training for the sales guys and techs as well. I went to one of the sessions in Seattle, and I'd say that some of them were negative toward the concept but most thought it was pretty cool.

Rob

Ahh, cartoys isn't just a website then...

So the brick&mortar sales didn't go as well as hoped then?

I haven't seen any stats, but I don't imagine that they were leaping off shelves.

The Mk.2/A was never intended to be a mainstream product. Personally I would have waited for the products that we have developed more recently, and introduced them into retail. Licencing will be a good move for us though - a big MP3 brand doesn't mean much in a 12V audio outlet, but a big 12V audio name does.

Rob

I just wonder if many of sonys and pioneers would be interested in licensing stuff when they could develop it themselves.

I'm sure you guys have a much better idea of the market than me though

I think Sony and Pioneer are doing a good job of demonstrating to the rest of the industry that they can't develop it themselves! The hardware is nice, the icons are nice, but the software leaves a LOT to be desired!

Rob

Not to mention the joy of customizing and modifying Empegs and M3s!! Dinan & Empeg: match made in heaven!!
--Andrew

*sob* I've been staying away what with the huge amount of posts here now...and this doesn't make me want to come back. Ah well.

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There's no question that a $1500 product will not fly in mobile car audio.

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HA HA

not really "in to" car audio are ya?
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sancho

Don't really know what you're talking about, do ya?

Bruno

Sancho's point is that $1500.00 car audio components are common and they do sell.

Unfortunately, what Sancho isn't taking into account is that most of the people who would buy a $1500.00 car audio component are doing so for sound quality reasons. For instance, they are buying high-end speakers or amplifiers. These people usually have a pre-disposed bias against MP3 technology because their exposure to it has (so far) been low-bitrate, poorly-encoded stuff that would sound crappy on their multi-thousand dollar system.

Hmm. Let's assume for the moment that Sonic|Blue had wanted to tell all of these high-end-gear-purchasers the one thing us empeg owners already know: That it's possible to have high quality and MP3 in the same package. Hmm. How would they go about doing that. Hmm? Anyone, anyone?

Most people spending the big bucks in car audio wouldn't know clean sound if it kicked them in the butt. The most expensive parts are not necessarily the best for SQ, nor are they always installed with SQ in mind.

That said, my original message, which he quoted, was about head units. $1500 head units are not common in any circle of car audio. The most expensive head units are not installed by car audio enthusiasts at all. They're usually the more specialty nav systems or pop-up screen players with DVD. This is a small niche within an already small niche market.

Though impossible to have done so, can you imagine the $199 price point right from the begining? I don't believe what someone else said in another thread. That the market for the empeg had/has been fully saturated. Not a chance. The product awareness is still a fraction of its potential.

MP3 in the car has the ability to swell. But the biggest growth rate will be achieved by OEM solutions for obvious reasons.

Bruno

Well they could/should have given some car audio places a demo unit for them to install and show off. Places like Audio King (sorry the only high end retail place I can name off the top of my head) They could try Big Yellow Sign, I mean Best Buy but than again that might hurt them more...

I think the hard part was "are there more people that want to fit a million songs in their car player or more people that want to have really high end sound?" The obvious answer was to market the players saying "a 10GB player can hold 1000 songs" instead of half that many encoded at a high bit rate.

Do sound competitions allow MiniDisc players? MD had to fight for years to get over the fact that it used compression.

LET THIS THREAD DIE!!

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That said, my original message, which he quoted, was about head units. $1500 head units are not common in any circle of car audio.

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you said that they "would not fly"

many companies make head units "fly" at similar price points... given: they are not the only product marketed by these companies(as was the case at empeg)...

i personally own three head units that do nothing but play cd audio/radio (a clarion 9255 and two mcintosh heads) that retail at similar price points $1100-1500... and 2 empegs...

i "associate" with folks that have mere head units worth much more than that (the $8k sony xes system for example)...


my point: though it may be uncommon, it is by no means ridiculous to those who are seriously "in to" car audio...
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sancho

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Unfortunately, what Sancho isn't taking into account is that most of the people who would buy a $1500.00 car audio component are doing so for sound quality reasons

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i suppose i am the exception that proves the rule... that or you have over-generalized...

people buy expensive car audio for many different reasons... sq, spl, having a head unit that contains 700 albums worth of mp3's... etc...
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sancho

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Do sound competitions allow MiniDisc players?

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depends on what sort of sound competition you are talking about...

sound quality: no (all major sq sanctioning bodies require the use of a judge's copy of their benchmark compact disc)

spl: use whatever you want
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sancho

I've never seen Clarion sell their top of the line CD head for over $1K.

Those headunits are fine for a company that has other products to sell and is in the car audio industry. They can easily tool for different units, unlike SB. And considering the markup for those car audio companies (multiple hundred percent, perhaps thousand for some products), they can sell only the handful to break even. Or lose money on them if only to promote their brand.

People who are "in-to" car audio enough to spend $8K on a head unit do not keep the consumer electronics companies running (not with their purchases anyway).

Do you have any links to this $8K Sony head by the way? I want to have a laugh at what someone thought was a good buy.

Bruno

LET THIS THREAD DIE!!

no

Do sound competitions allow MiniDisc players? MD had to fight for years to get over the fact that it used compression.

The issue really is whether the audio has been affected when it is played back. If the judges provide their own disks, the playing field is even.
Has this already been said? It's been so long since this thread popped up.

Perhaps the $8k head unit is made of solid gold?

I'd like to see that link too...
I think it sounds interesting...

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I've never seen Clarion sell their top of the line CD head for over $1K

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the drx-9255 originally retailed in excess of $1k... the price has dropped a bit in the last few years...

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People who are "in-to" car audio enough to spend $8K on a head unit do not keep the consumer electronics companies running (not with their purchases anyway).

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never said they did... they are customers... but, they are by no means the majority of customers...

that wasn't the point at all, though... my point was that $1500 head units sell... and if you were really "in to" car audio you probably wouldn't have made a statement to the contrary...

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Do you have any links to this $8K Sony head by the way?

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a sony press release (in japanese)

incarnation #2 or 3 of my friend's install

earl zausmer had one in his infamous bmw... and here

if you want anymore links... just do a search for "sony xes z-50"... that is the model # for the "head" which is actually based in the "changer" which incorporates the dsp's, etc... the dingus in the dash is nothing more than the display...

some of the mags reviewed it a couple years ago as well...
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sancho

well...
you have to admit...that's more then a head unit...
I think someone made the comment, spending a couple k on various components...so that's all that is...it's a CD Changer amps and more with a "head unit" sized interface to control it...I don't even think you could claim that system comes with a head unit...

I find it funny how some of the same people who attacked me for saying in this threadt that not many people would spend $1500 on a head unit are now arguing the same point that I originally made. Very ironic.

Ya know I watched "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" last night on the big screen (a old theatre was showing it). After reading this all i can say is:

"Let's not bicker and argue about who killed who..."

Seems we are all here for the same reason. Lets make the best of it. And if you don't like that - well then:

"Your mother was a hamster and your father smells of elderberries!"



(For those of you who are not familar with this movie I apologize - and I fart in your general direction)