I got the November 99 issue of Auto Sound and Security magazine and I noticed something of which you'll all be able to relate to. Since I've got nothing better to do, I might as well type it up!

Before I got ahead, are you guys at Empeg responsible for this? Is there going to be any advertising done in enthusiast magazines like this?

MP3 & ME

First of all, great mag, guys! I really dig the hands-on stuff you do. It makes me feel that you guys are really in the trenches and doing hands on kind of stuff, not just writing about what other people do. Anyway, I have a question about MP3. I know what it is and how it works for music on computers, but how does it work in the car environment? What do I have to do, install a big bad Pentium II computer in the back seat just to listen to MP3s? And do you know of any MP3 players? I think I saw something about a portable player, but I can't remember. Any help you can offer would be appreciated. Thanks, and keep up the good work with the hands on stuff.

Scott Jeter Medford, OR

Actually Scott, it's funny that you mention MP3. Our sister publication Car Audio & Electronics Magazine, will be a doing a story on a MP3 player for the car environment next month. Be on the look out for that. The portable MP3 player you are thinking of is the Diamond Multimedia Rio. The only drawback to this unit is it only lets you play around 70 minutes worth of music. Now there is a player coming out of England that is being developed, and while I can't give away much information, I will print what I got from their Web site. To quote them, "We think it's a pretty neat unit. The initial design is to go in your car, but you can use it at home, on a boat ... almost anywhere. The principle is to store CD-quality music using MPEG technology onto a hard disk in the unit and use the power of an embedded computer to serve up the music you want, when you want it. No more messing around with changing discs or tapes. You design what gets played based on a criteria you define. The other key advantage of the MPEG player is the amount of music you can keep on it. At 4 GB (the base model), you'll have 70 hours of non-stop playing time. That's probably enough for all your favorites, your best friend's favorites, your mum's favorites plus those you hope you'll like some day. Of course, from the 'mine if bigger than yours' viewpoint, the top level is currently 28 GB (and it'll only get bigger as higher capacity drives become available). Mind-numbingly massive (476 hours), it's almost three weeks without a repeat. That's about 500 albums, all in a unit only 6 x 5 x 2 inches. Useful for people with small cars and large music collections." There you have it. Look for more on this later.


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Shawn Poulson
[email protected]