I am sorry, I stumbled upon this product and have been FASCINATED ever since..I am VERY SERIOUSLY thinking about buying one. Here's my question...
Seems like rio is not manufacturing more. Is this correct? Does this mean they are discontinuing this product? Or does it mean that they are preparing to release a new product and dont want to mfg more of the old one

If i buy one of these, am I stuck? Certainly these boards tell me that there is plenty of following for this, but perhaps I should look to buy an MP3 type player from some other manufacturer? (is that completely blasphemous?) Does anyone else have a similar (albeing inferior I'm sure) product?

What should I do ?

Buy one as soon as you can (if you can!!). There won't be anything as good as this for a long time. Especially at the current price.

I'd suggest that even if we never released another software update for Rio Car (there have been several since it became EOL) the competing products that are available now will never achieve the level of functionality that this product already has.

In practice there will be more updates, and there's a wealth of third party development going on.

Of course, I'm biased.

You can read the full story on the EOL here:

http://www.empeg.com/eol.html

and also in the FAQ at:

http://www.riocar.org/

Rob

Welcome.

This is a FAQ entry, so please click here to read the details about the end-of-life (different information than what Rob just linked, so click on this one, too).

It is currently the best car MP3 player on the market, and there doesn't appear to be anything coming out in the near future that even comes close. So I suggest grabbing one as soon as you can, because at the close-out prices, it's an absolute steal.

ok, thank you. I have read the posts..however, is there a possibility that sonic|blue will sell the empeg company to someone else like, say pioneer or sony ??

Also: With 30GB, there's no reason not to use this in my home as well. Does anyone produce a "base" that the car portion can be docked in and out of? I know you can wire it up using the various ports and rca jacks, but can it be docked into a home system?

thanks again

There is always a chance that one company might buy another company. At the moment, there do not appear to be any plans in the works for this to happen to SonicBlue at this time.

Some people have purchased an extra car docking sled and wired it up into a home component system, so yes, this can be done.

Are the people at empeg upset about rio's decision here? Or do they have new exciting things in the works for the product?

Are the people at empeg upset about rio's decision here?

They are disappointed that their flagship product didn't do particularly well in the marketplace. But they support Sonic|blue's current strategy, which is to get this technology to the public via OEMs instead of direct-marketing. (That's industry-speak for "factory stereo system", by the way.)

We've hashed through this dozens of times on the BBS already. Some believe that the expense was the barrier to a large consumer market. This would seem to be true, as hardly anyone bought the players at $1000.00, but they're getting snatched up quickly at under $400.00. Too bad they couldn't be made profitable at that price point. Others think that even the price barrier could have been overcome with the proper marketing.

Or do they have new exciting things in the works for the product?

They have new and exciting things in the works, but not for this product line. There will no longer be a retail car audio line marketed by SonicBlue. An example of new and exciting things they're working on would be the Rio HSX-109.

Others think that even the price barrier could have been overcome with the proper marketing.

I'm not so sure of that. In fact, I'm pretty sure it couldn't have been.

I stand by what I said here.

The empeg player is the best toy I ever owned -- but it is not for the masses.

tanstaafl.

I would say BUY ONE ASAP! IT is positively the coolest Mp3 option out there, the only drawback WAS the price...now its half off (or more) so no reason not to buy. What happens a year from now (out of warranty) is probably not too relavent cause most computer stuff get obsoleted too. To it's credit theree are a lot of users and the original guys are very much into continuing so I think there will be support for a long while...or at least until someone comes out with a cooler idea

I did some hunting around in the FAQ, and the only figure quoted for total number of units sold is 4000. Given the amount of activity on the BBS, I had the impression that there were many more times that number out in people's hands. It appears that those who have managed to purchase units have joined a select group, hehe.

Is the 4000 figure still accurate, post-EOL, or have the ranks of empeg/RioCar owners swelled in the last 6 months? Does the total number include all models of the empeg( MkI, MkII, MkIIa)?

The FAQ entry included the 300-or-so Mark1 players manufactured, and the about-4000 Mk2/2a players manufactured. This was total manufactured and existing on the planet, not total sold.

Note that these figures are based totally on reported serial numbers and are just a guess.

And a bunch of people (like myself) own more than 1 player and someone even owns 10!

i own 3 and considering buying antoher soon.. if i can offord it..

I wish that I had more than one of these things. I was on the empeg mailing and waiting lists for a while at the very beginning, but had to abort once I considered the prices. I decided it was better to actually be able to drive my car around than have an empeg in it and put it in storage for a while. Now that I think about it, my car at the time cost me only $2700 anyway, and that was stretching my budget .

Anyway, if we assume that empeg owners each have 1.5-2 units on average, we are looking at somewhere between 2100-2900 total empeg owners. Gosh, I gotta get to that California owners meeting!