I completely understand Rob's comments about sadness and about EOL decision being correct. Witness the upsurge in interest upon liquidation, but a product never valued sufficiently (in cold cash terms, even allowing for SonicBLUE ineptitude) to keep it alive. Yes, if I were one of the Empeg folks from Cambridge, I think I'd be sad.

Yeah, it really makes you think, doesn't it?

Although I have to say that my take on it is as follows...

There have always been two groups of people, those who "get it", and those who don't. We all know it's a fantastic product, but it can only be sold to people who understand how great it is. Some people just don't see an advantage beyond the CD changer they've already got in their car. This latter group we don't need to worry about, because they would never buy this player, at any price.

Out of those who "get" it, there was a number of people for whom price was no object. I was one of them. My only problem was that I discovered the existence of the player when there was still a queue, and I ended up getting my Mark1 second-hand because there were no new ones available. I considered it an absolute STEAL for the price. I seem to recall I payed Doug316 about $1000 or $1100 for it. I think it even had a 4gb drive...

Then there are the people who "get" it, but for whom price was an important factor. My friend Tod is one of those people. He couldn't see paying over a grand for a car stereo, and I respect that. When the price came down in October, he was teetering on the fence-- it was still a steep price, even to someone who "gets" it. The December price drop shoved him rather hard over that fence.

Now, if you apply a Carl Sagan-style calculation to this whole concept, you've got the following variables:

1) Number of people who actually know about the existence of the empeg.
2) Number of people who would tend to "get it" if they knew about the empeg.
3) The price people who "get it" will pay for an empeg.
4) Price of the empeg (when being sold for its correct profit-making non-liquidation price).

The end result of this calculation is how many players end up getting sold for a profit (before they decided to liquidate the stock at a loss).

The way I see it, all of these, except number 1, are fixed values which can't be changed by empeg or Sonic|blue. The only way to get the final result to go up, is to increase the value of item number 1. This takes marketing.

I wonder if all of the people in the #1 group got the message during the product lifespan? Somehow I think not.