My first empeg!

Hi guys, I'm new here. I've been lurking for a while but this is my first post. It's great to see such an active community for such a wonderful product that still hasn't quite been matched by the industry since.

I've wanted an empeg ever since I saw one in my friends Miata back in 2001. Finally, that dream came true last week! I did some programming work for another friend in trade for his empeg that he had had lying around for a couple years (never got around to reinstalling it after his old car died.)

There's no way I'll be able to install it in my car myself, I lack both the tools and the expertise to pull off such a task. So, I've been shopping around to some of the local car audio installation places. The first place I actually visited was pretty insulting. I told the guy what I wanted to do and the guy looked at the empeg, told me I shouldn't "bother installing an old piece of junk like that" and tried to sell me some $400 Alpine iPod crap thing. I thanked him for his time and left.

So, this is just the first part of my story, gonna try more places until I can find a man of vision to make my empeg dream a reality!

Welcome, and good luck on finding a good installer.

koleslaw, what car are you installing it into?

C'mon, I'm in my mid 60's, Hardly technically minded, and have installed Empegs in: Renault, MG, Audi, Hymer, only Range Rovers defeated me - I started doing my own installations long before Empegs, because I reckoned that I could do a better job than installers.
It's really not too difficult and, I don't know about the US, but here it's fairly easy to get the bits and pieces you need either locally or on the web: Two of those cars needed adaptor kits to fit a standard DIN unit in to a dash which normally has their own shaped unit.
You couldn't find anything more comprehensive than Tony's faq (I hope he never tires of the praise that's (rightly) heaped upon him) and if you get stuck, you can always post here.
Always bear in mind that the car that you are fitting it in to, one day you'll be taking it out of: So try and leave the wiring and fittings for the original HU in place.

Aw, thanks.

I too couldn't find anyone willing to install the empeg. All of them bar one would simply not install something they hadn't supplied as part of the job.

The other one had actually heard of the empeg (both how much it cost and it's rarity at the time) and declined the job because he was concerned that if he'd buggered it up it would've been difficult (and possibly expensive) to repair.

So good luck finding someone!

Phoenix42: 2005 Nissan Sentra

I talked to the guy I got it from and he recommended the person who initially installed it for him. I've yet to speak to this person though.

If you've got a bunch of spare time and want to learn some new things, you could learn everything you need to install this just by reading online. Nissan forums will certainly have information and maybe even guides for installing aftermarket stereos. Combine that with Tony's FAQ and info on this BBS to learn the specifics of the empeg.

The hardest thing, in my opinion, would be running power cables from the battery. Check The 12 Volt car audio forum for info about that, and more.

No need to be fancy. Stock speakers and a low-end amplifier are all you need for a basic install. If that works out, you could always upgrade later. Good luck.