If you happen to be an yuppie.. er... urban sprawl weenie... er... Northern Virginian , Hurley's Auto Audio in Tyson's Corner (McLean in the phone book) claims to have done about a dozen or so Rio Car/Empeg installs. I'm taking my unit in for installation into a '99 Miata with the stock Bose head unit. I'll let you all know how it goes.

claims to have done about a dozen or so Rio Car/Empeg installs.

A dozen or so? Highly unlikely.

Do the math... even in Alaska, where the total population of the state is less than a modestly-sized city anywhere else in the country, there are at least 20 stereo shops. I would guess that the average U.S. state probably has 10 times as many -- say 200. Times 50 states, that would be 10,000 stereo shops in the U.S. alone.

Let's guess and say that 60% of the 4,000 empegs went to the U.S., and further guess and say that 50% of those empegs were professionally installed (as opposed to owner installed). That would be about 1200 Rio Car/empeg installs spread out over 10,000 stereo shops, or an average of about one installation for every eight shops.

How can you explain the likelihood of this shop in Northern Virginia (an area that is certainly not a hotbed of empeg activity in the first place, not compared to Northeastern US, or Texas, or California) doing empeg installations at a rate of 100 times what you would expect by averages?

It's like the old saying, "Be wary of somebody who says he enjoys a cold shower in the morning. Since he lies about that, he'll lie about other things too."

tanstaafl.

Actaully, I do believe the fellow. Here's why:

1. The fellow that I was talking to named Empeg/Rio Car to me when I simply described the device to him prior to telling him the name of the device.
2. Fairfax County, Virginia is the single richest county in the nation. We were the Silicon Valley of the East before the Dot Bust.
3. Due to point 2, we had, and still have, a large congregation of well paid geeks living in the area.
4. Hurley's is the only auto audio dedicated shop in Tyson's Corner.
5. Most of the auto dealers in Tyson's send all of their auto audio work to Hurley's.

Seem like plenty of reasons to believe the fella.

Anyway, as I stated, I'll share the outcome with you all here tomorrow afternoon after I have it installed.

Yep. tanstaafl was half right. This guy has installed several Neo Cars but only one Empeg/Rio Car.

Then add that they tried to hook up the Empeg to my system via RF. Hello! Empegs don't have any significant power to drive the RF signal! I asked them about installing an amp between the head unit and the Empeg (seemed obvious to me). It was like a light went on over their heads.

So clueless. At least they didn't break anything. In the meantime, while they order a tiny amp to fit in the dash of my Miata, I have an RF-based install which, while mediocre, is better than nothing.

Now I wish that I'd never taken my father's advice and instead took the vehicle and Mk2 to Myer-Emco as I was initially predisposed to do!

... this installer could handle the Empeg install without a problem. The real hitch was his utter lack of understanding of the proprietary interface on my Miata's Bose head unit. I'm fairly certain were the interface a simple ISO connector that he would've pulled it off without a hitch.

As is, my first (hopefully of two) Empeg harness is installed in the Miata, hooked into my Bose head unit's aux in via a soddering arrangement on a few pins, and a switch controls the remote amp line. All very nice and sounds like a beaut.

And, lastly, regarding the shop themselves, they didn't charge me anything for this second round of work. Even though I walked in there this morning expecting a fight, they didn't even put up an argument about it much to my pleasure. The manager called the whole deal a wash and had his fellas redo the install without another dime of expense on my part all it should be. Ultimately, I would recommend Hurley's to other folks in the area. Just make sure that if you are going to have them do work on any unit with a proprietary interface that you provide them the spec to said interface so that they can work with it. They won't do the research themselves.

Just thought that I'd finish this thread off in case there's another poor clueless sap in the Northern Virginia area who doesn't want to install the hardware himself.

Dude.... you shoulda just done it yourself... I live in Northern VA I woulda helped

I used to be an installer at Sound Solutions (Chantilly) back in the day. About 8 years ago they were probably the best shop in NoVa. Not sure who's good now, but you should at least give them a try.

Wes
'95 M3

I'm a code monkey not a greese monkey. However, as much as I have learned in the past few weeks, I probably could've done most of it myself. *shrug* Anyway, it's done and working properly.

I wouldn't say your a grease monkey for playing with car stereos.... the majority of the work is running wires and all that fun stuff. The wiring is frickin simple (most of the time), the worst part of my install was getting my infinity's in the rear deck of my Audi... But good to hear that it's all up and running... it's a beautiful thing isn't it?

Oh yeah! 13GB of music and climbing. Now I just need that darn sled, that I ordered a couple of weeks ago from the Empeg store, to show up so that I can have a sled in either car!