First off, I have to say i'm damn happy to own my empeg. I've been following the entire empeg thing since hugo's mp3mobile (was that 98?), i got the newsletters and kept dreaming and dreaming.. i'm so glad I finally got my hands on one, I had written it off as financially unobtainable before (I couldn't justify spending over a grand)

I know the empeg guys were developing something else for sonicblue, but here's my question (i don't even know if they're at liberty to talk about it, thats why i ask) .. did sonicblue see any commercial viability in the mobile mp3 market? Is it possible (now, or in the future) sonicblue may have them work on the next generation car player? I can only dream of the possibilities if that might be true

(dreaming, wondering what he's going to do when his empeg takes a dive if he can't secure a 2nd one)

I think the basic idea SonicBlue had was this:

"Hard-disk-based car players are still very expensive to manufacture, and people won't buy them in profitable quantities yet. The Rio Car is a perfect example of this, we were unable to sell even a few thousand of them until after we dropped the price to way-below-cost levels."

So SonicBlue is simply not trying to produce any more car players at retail. The empeg team's talents are is now being used to develop other prodcuts for SonicBlue. The most recent examples of such products are the Rio HSX-109 and the Rio Receiver.

Now, my personal opinion is that the reason the players didn't sell had little to do with the cost. I think that there are enough people in this world in the car player's target market (geek toy) that they could have been profitable. No, the problem is that very little effort was put into marketing the product. Now, this is just my opinion, and others on the BBS have disagreed with me on this point in the past, so take it for what it's worth. But I have a fear that the HSX-109 and the Rio Receiver may meet the same fate because SonicBlue can't seem to market their way out of a wet paper bag.

In the meantime, the term "OEM" has been mentioned by the empeg team here on the BBS. What this means is that SonicBlue will be developing and licensing products for other companies. It will then be up to those other companies to do the marketing and distribution of the products. If my opinion about SonicBlue's ability to market is correct, then this is really the best solution.

Also keep in mind that "OEM" does not necessarily mean Sony, Pioneer, etc. It might, but keep in mind that these companies have extensive car-stereo R&D departments of their own and are already releasing car players without help from SonicBlue.

That's a damn shame. I didn't know too much about the markup or actual cost of production per unit, so i never knew how all of that went down. But that was why I never got one.. couldn't come to terms with spending that kind of money on somethng like that (i was 19 at the time in college).. I forgot about it all eventually, and fast forward to now; i've finally got my empeg. And i love it.. it's great.

Anyways, thanks for the reply, that's exactly what I was looking for, sadly enough. But the retail guys at circuit city are telling me about this sony head unit with an cd player, and some type of mass storage. this thing can rip audio cds and save it somewhere? cool idea, but i seriously doubt sony would do some of the important 'details' right. A cool idea stil...

Yeah, that's the Sony MEX-1HD... It has (iirc) a 10gb drive, and a CD drive that rips CDs at 8x speed to the HDD. Looks quite sweet, but at $1500, I'd rather have an empeg, even for the same price. And I bet you can't increase the HD size on it.

It also has something called 'DSO', which is Sony's (bad) attempt at doing the ultra-cool speaker-delaying stuff that the empeg does to place the sound-stage centrally (time-alignment). The Sony only has three preset values though, which are probably great if you have the perfect car.

Nice motorized front though.

You can see it at:

http://www.xplodsony.com/products/?CATEGORY=CD&MD=MEX-1HD

Cheers,

A.

Slight mixup there - DSO is actually a feature to 'raise the soundstage' (oh aye...). The feature I had in mind is Sony's 'My Best Sound Position' MBP, which that unit doesn't seem to feature.

Cheers,

A.

Woo Hoooo!!! yet another Mp3 entry with a whopping GIGABYTE of storage. Price? ~$850. BRING BACK THE EMPEG!!!!!

LMAO!

In reply to:

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BRING BACK THE EMPEG!!!!

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Could you imagine? Think about that for a second. Pioneer, Sony, Nakamichi, Alpine... all putting out their own MP3 variations for the next few years. They market it's benefits. They get people accustomed to the notion. It's no longer a novelty. No more niche market. Suddenly, there's a market available for an MP3 player in the $1500 price range. Dare we see a resurrection of the Empeg?

I think they could try again in a few years, with the exact same product... AND WIN! Could it be??? Talk about a comeback!

As long as we talk about a comeback... get rid of the VFD, and add the 65K color screen that sony has.... mmmm.... full color visuals....

-Mike

God, I hope so.

Well said Tony! There was totally a market for the empegs at the previous price point, but there was a complete lack of willingness to put the $$'s into telling people about it in a way that reached the right masses.

I mean no disrespect to the team in the UK. They did well with what they had, but SB corporate had no idea as to how to focus a marketing campagin to speak to the right audience. Clearly we're not talking about skate-punks (for the most part) but alas, tis water under the bridge now.

Grrr. Makes me mad to have to recall how lame some peoples decisions can be--and I was just wanting to check up on the OGG progress, now I need to dig up the antacids...