When I originally got my empeg, it was cool, I put about twenty songs on it, and it rocked. Real nice display, nice interface, everything was great. Well, then the hard-drive died. So it was sent to the U.S. service center. Very nice guys there, they sent a fed-ex guy to pick it up, got it, and I had it back a week later. Well, then it played music and everything, but the display didn't work anymore. Hmmm... Not really surprising as I'm sure the traveling wasn't the healthiest for it. So back it went. Of course, Federal Express delivered it to the wrong address in Florida. Seems that there is a company near Empeg USA with the name Empoy. And the FedEx people decided to deliver it there. And then they mailed me a bill. Nice of them. Well the cool people at Empoy knew how to read an address label, unlike the people at FedEx, and sent the unit to Empeg USA through the US postal service. And it finnaly made it in, so they could forge ahead and fix it. Which they do. Hooray! When it came back I filled it up and tested it, and everything worked like a champ. Way to go U.S. service!
Then I went through the daunting task of installing it into my Buick LeSabre. The way people talk about engine whine, I was pretty concerned, because I had some serious hardware to contend with. A bazooka subwoofer, and a Pyramid 300 watt 4 channel amp.
I didn't really get any engine whine though. I figure this is because I had a very good ground, and some very heavy wire. (Alot of pops and pings when you turn your stereo up loud is due to cruddy wire that can't handle the voltage.) So I got it all installed, but then came to the realization that the chasis's rear-left output doesn't work. I inspected it pretty good, but it looks fine, but no sound comes out of it. I swapped things around with the amp, etc, but to no avail. Well, now I had a choice, I could sent it in for service a third time (Well the chasis maybe, not the stereo.) Or I could push all the audio out through the frontal contacts and let the amplifier handle the sound distribution. (Which can be done, but not on the fly. Requires a screw driver and some good light.) So thats what I did.
The end result? Everything works, it sounds great. But this is a warning to all you people talking about voiding your warranties to install new drives. Make sure you have it in complete working order before going about messing with the internals. I thought mine was functioning fine when I first got it, only to find the hard-drive damaged later down the block cycle.
I'm still a happy customer after all that. Theres just something about having a stereo in your car that is this cool. How can anyone be upset?