Road trip with Empeg

I drove from San Francisco to Los Angeles yesterday. It is a 6 hour drive and I took one break, for about 15 minutes, after 3 hours. Needless to say, my Empeg was playing throughout the trip.

As I was approaching LA, after around 5 hours of continuous playing, the Empeg started acting strange. In the middle of a song, it would suddenly go mute, and stay like that for about 5 - 10 seconds. And then the song would come back on.

I ignored it the first time, and the second time it happened, I assumed that the mp3 file was screwed up. So I switched to a track I listen to a lot, and know is of good quality (with no silence, bleeps etc).

The same thing happened again, in the middle of the song. I listened to many tracks after that, but with the same result.

It was a hot day yesterday, and I thought that the unit probably over heated. So I pulled over, and pulled out the unit. It felt fine to me. And there was no smell of burning wires either.

Is my unit defective? Has any one here experienced this before? Any suggestions on why this could have happened?

Thanks!

Assuming there was nothing wrong with the MP3s (dig through the FAQ for a post on MP3 checking utilities), and assuming you weren't sitting on the Pause button on the remote, then it sounds like hardware trouble, such as a disk drive or RAM problem.

It's also possible that a piece of third-party software such as Displayserver could have been claiming too much memory. Were you running Displayserver (or anything that uses a custom init) by any chance?

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Tony Fabris

No, I am not running any third-party software.

Try plugging the unit in at work or home and letting it play for several hours. During this time, have it hooked up to Hyperterminal (see FAQ). If it fails, see if anything appears on the serial port at the time of failure. Then do a hardware test after the failure as instructed in the FAQ.

I have done several trips from Northern California to Los Angeles and back, and the empeg hasn't failed during these journeys.

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Tony Fabris

i had one such problem. a road trip from philadelphia to st. louis. it began to happen about 2 hours into the trip. i assumed (and i still think it was the problem) that it was b/c my amp was overheating. it is mounted in the trunk of my miata. my wife and i were packing for a week long vacation in the trunk along with a 5 person tent. i pulled over once or twice to ventilate the amp, and it was very hot. when the empeg stopped playing, i simply let it sit off for about 10 minutes and it would then play for a while until it cut out again.

don't know if this could be an issue with you or not, but thought i'd mention it.

jeremy

12 gig, green...

I've seen this before with my amps; they go into shutdown to protect themselves. When the temperature falls slightly, they'll play again.

If the empeg timecode is still counting upwards, then the problem is most likely to be your amp and not the empeg. If the empeg stutters (and the elapsed time clock doesn't keep ticking) or fails to respond to button presses (etc) then there may be a problem with the empeg - or a bug in the player.

Hugo

Thanks Jeremy and Hugo.

The Empeg didn't stutter. And the timecount was counting upwards. So I guess my amp was the problem.

Is there a way to prevent overheating of amps? Does it help to get a higher end amp?

Thanks!

The Empeg didn't stutter. And the timecount was counting upwards.

Hey, you didn't say that the first time.

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Tony Fabris

You need to ensure good ventilation to the amp, which may necessitate one or more fans. A higher end amp won't usually help (it may even have more sensitive thermal protection).

Rob

A higher end amp won't usually help

I have to disagree with that. Cheap amps tend to be less powerful and less efficient so people run them at a higher gain and they tend to overheat. Used to happen to me with a couple of crappy amps. I now have a couple of MTX amps (excellent power for the money) and have no problems. In fact I store a blanket, toolkit, and sweater (limited room in my jeep) on top of the amp driving my two subs and have never had a problem.
-Mike