I'm already a glad owner of a Mk2. But just out of interest - Are there any plans about changing the price of the Mk2?

I know some people who would really like to buy the Mk2 but it's too expensive for them. Maybe with a lower pricing you could increase the sell-rate (I think you don't have problems with selling the Mk2 - more likely you have problems on producing them... but what's about 1 year later when all the freaks already have one and those who would like to have it don't want to spend that much money)




TeeMcBee
Got my Mk2! # 080000143

Apparently nobody wants to touch this one. Its such an evil subject. From an outsiders (empeg owner, not employee) perspective: I don’t see how they could say the price is going down in the future right here, right now. It has not been out that long, demand seems to exceed production regularly, it would discourage potential buyers, and it would only piss off those who recently purchased.

I bet they hold the price points, but increase drive capacities and functionality (which existing owners get to share in). The only thing I see that could bring the price down is competition - and I certainly have not seen anything even close to that.

IMHO - I think its is priced right. Sure it stings a little, but if a Porsche cost the same VW (and as common) do you think they would still be as cool. This may sound a little vein - but I like having an unique car stereo.

SO, with that said - I bet the price goes up before it comes down. Maybe it just wishful thinking, as I just paid the creditcard bill....



-Doug
(Mk2-12G-Blue)

We have no plans to change the pricing. It's a VERY expensive product to manufacure by consumer electronic standards.

We know how to get the car player into the highstreet for a fraction of the current cost - unfortunately this involves consumerisation; the loss of most of the neat features, the loss of free on-going software support and the loss of responsiveness to customer suggestions. It would be neither sold nor supported by empeg directly.

We believe that our high end niche market is big enough to sustain the product as it stands for some considerable time, and we fully expect to continue selling our over-spec'd, fun, premium product for the foreseeable future.

As we've often said, the price isn't expected to change any time soon but the specification will continue to improve in terms of both disk capacity and software features.

Rob

And don't forget that the Empeg is the company's flagship product. They have other, cheaper irons in the fire. I'm referring to the OEM projects: not manufactured directly by Empeg, but containing their technology.

Think of the Empeg as the "Lexus" of their product line, and the OEM projects as the cheaper Toyotas.

___________
Tony Fabris

Wait a minute, isn't a Porsche a VW c.i.p. the 914. Wasn't the 914,in the US, badged as a Porsche and in Europe there was no Porsche badge but adorned with a VW emblem.
Toyota>Lexus;Chevy>GMC;Honda>Acura; Ford>Jaguar AGGGH what a shame.

I used to be dyslexic but I'm KO now.

Some will try to kill me for this, but I'll say it anyway.
Please make the MKIII even more expensive (not overpriced, just expensive).
I really would love to pay 2K$ for a really ultra cool "radio" that nobody else in my town has;
And that has a perfect support behinde it.
Than to have a 200$ "radio" that "works" and everyone has it;
I won't even talk about the support for this one ;)

If you want a Rolex, pay for a Rolex.

anti
ps:
No, I'm not rich ....

Let me be the first to "kill you" on this one. Your post seems to state you bought your Empeg for status ("ultra cool radio that nobody else in my town has") Most people (from comments on this BBS) buy it for its value as a car MP3 player and extensible in-dash computing platform, not its status appeal. If the price on Empegs were to go down, then yes, more people would own it, and yes, you'd be slightly less cool when you start seeing them inside other cars in your neighborhood. But I think the increased viability of Empeg's brand name, along with the increase in user base (which would help independent development) would be well worth a little ego drop.

I found the Empeg to be priced well considering the feature set, so I didn't mind paying what I did. If the price were to go down, that would be cool too. But if the price was artificially pumped up so that people can say "I spent $3000 on my car stereo" I think that's a little silly. Hell, you can always lie and you spent $10k on it if you need status that much.

---
MkII 080000554

Stupid idiot! He should spend his bucks on a new car if he seeks so much for reputation...

#15399 (!!!)

Ford>Jaguar AGGGH what a shame.

Wrong.

Perhaps you long for the "good old days" when Jaguar ranked just about equal with Yugo in terms of build quality, reliability, and number of problems repaired under warranty in the first month of ownership.

Do you remember Lucas electrical equipment? Jaguars always have been delightful cars to look at and drive, but keeping them running has been an expensive nightmare for decades.

Now, under Ford's auspices, the quality surveys (such as JD Power) have shown enormous improvements in Jaguar reliability and user satisfaction. And there has been no sign of the feared "dumbing down" of the marque. The current lineup of Jaguar models is extraordinary -- there is no likelihood of confusing a Jaguar S-type with a Ford LTD, and look at cars like the XK8 or the XKR if you think Jaguar has lost its touch.

If Ford had not taken over Jaguar, then Jaguar would have gone the way of virtually all of the English marques. Remember Rover? MG? Austin Healey? Sunbeam? Hillman? Triumph? I'm sure that Rob or Hugo could add another dozen names to this funereal list.

Not only did Ford save Jaguar, they made them better than they've ever been.

tanstaafl.

"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

Hell, you can always lie and you spent $10k on it if you need status that much.

There's a radio commercial here for some supposedly very competively priced product that suggests this ("If you don't think the price is right, you can always tell your friends you payed more")

Dragi "Bonzi" Raos
Zagreb, Croatia
Q#5196, MkII#80000376, 18GB green

in response to the whole ego tripping thing.

to each his own.

now the honesty comes out.

i hate people like you who buy brand name clothes not for the look or quality of the fabric but just cause it says tommy this or abercrombe this. Fools like your selfs are the type of people who make people like me rich. As i gain wealth and spread it amongst my family and freinds you stay in the same place. and o ya your all meanies. and icky. so THERE!

;)

Im as confused as a baby in a topless bar...

Please make the MKIII even more expensive (not overpriced, just expensive).

If you mean even more full-featured (say, remote panel and LCD screen, wireless networking, interface to car diagnostic, DAB radio, navigation, 1TB solid state storage, radar, ejectable passanger seat, missiles...:) then OK, it could cost another $500 and I would still buy it, but not as status symbol. Heck, I am using it in a shoebox-sized, 55HP Renault Twingo!

If you want a Rolex, pay for a Rolex.

empeg-car is not a Rolex. Rolex is a status symbol. Gold cased mechanical Rolex costs 10 or 20 times more than titanium-cased Seico Kinetic without a single advantage. empeg is, at the moment, state of the art in ICE and is priced accordingly. I hope it stays that way (on both feature and price account).

Dragi "Bonzi" Raos
Zagreb, Croatia
Q#5196, MkII#80000376, 18GB green

i hate people like you who buy brand name clothes not for the look or quality of the fabric but just cause it says tommy this or abercrombe this. Fools like your selfs are the type of people who make people like me rich. As i gain wealth and spread it amongst my family and freinds you stay in the same place. and o ya your all meanies. and icky. so THERE!

What, ah what have I done to deserve this? (Translation: huh?!?)

Dragi "Bonzi" Raos
Zagreb, Croatia
Q#5196, MkII#80000376, 18GB green

OK,
just to get this straight.
(And yes, it was (partly) flame bait)

I didn't buy the empeg for status.
The reason why I don't want everybody to have one is different.
If there are 500 empeg owners worldwide the service will stay at the same quality as it is.
If there are 5.000.000 empeg owners the quality of service will become less good.
No Matter at what product you look it's always been the same.
The Jaguar service is great, while the VW service ... well you know ...
The centurion card service is more than perfect, while the gold card service is so bad you'd never call twice.

I'd prefer to have a high priced (not overpriced) product with great service and hight quality than a consumerized product with a low price, average quality and horrible service ?

And yes, most of you bought their empeg for status, amongst other reasons.
Because a selfmade solution delivers the same thing for just over $300 (depending on disk size),
but it just doesn't look that good.

Anyway.
We all love our empeg.
We all love the "family feeling".

So don't hate me.
I tend to overexaggerate sometimes.
And I know it.

ciao
Anti
ps:
And yes, the Rolex example was a bad one.
I never had one, so I assumed high quality, not (only) high status.

If Ford had not taken over Jaguar, then Jaguar would have gone the way of virtually all of the English marques. Remember Rover? MG? Austin Healey? Sunbeam? Hillman? Triumph?

{sound of knuckles crackling as hands are flexed}

I have to take issue with you sir! {sound of glove genteely slapped across face}

How dare you take the name of our dear dead departed in vain! (the fact that I drive a TR 6 has nothing to do with this - and don't forget that Triumph still lives as a possible marque under BMW "spit, spit"). I challenge you to a duel, at dawn, with weapons of your choice. And no, Lucas dynamos are not acceptable weapons (except for throwing at short distances).

Having said that, I am absolutely 100% in agreement with what you say

One of the few remaining Mk1 owners... #00015

Actually, if a company does things the right way, they can have a large customer base as well as excellent service. Just look at Crutchfield. I have every confidence that Empeg will follow the same model: the company founders certainly have the right attitude.

___________
Tony Fabris

What, ah what have I done to deserve this? (Translation: huh?!?)

Oh, Dragi, you know how it goes -- gotta hate all you foreigners, right?

No, HWD was replying to Anti's post, not yours, so don't be too concerned.

tanstaafl.

"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

Perhaps I was a bit harsh but I hate to see another exotic become a mass produced generic hunk of metal. Believe it or not the eccentric nature of those cars are what made them special in their day. People don't want to drive a car anymore they just want to get from point A to point B, might as well ride a bus.
Comparing the Jaguar with a Yugo is very much comparing apples to oranges, Yugo was a cheap made car from the start and never meant to be anything. The Jaguars were expensive to make using hand labor, and it showed. They couldn't survive because of that. I don't know about the new ones but I bet they are driven by people who don't what a boot or bonnet is and have barely went beyond just looking at the engine. Yes, those days are probably gone, just because it has the Jaguar badge don't assume it's the same cat, however mangled, inside.

What's really going to bake your noodle later on; is would've happen if I hadn't said anything?

No, HWD was replying to Anti's post, not yours, so don't be too concerned.

I supposed that myself, Doug, but felt compelled to reply mildly to a post quite out of character for our little community...

Cheers!

Dragi "Bonzi" Raos
Zagreb, Croatia
Q#5196, MkII#80000376, 18GB green

And yes, most of you bought their empeg for status, amongst other reasons. Because a selfmade solution delivers the same thing for just over $300 (depending on disk size), but it just doesn't look that good.

Aaargh, here we go again! I bought empeg to enjoy it, not to show up. As you can see here, it gets installed in everything from $50k+ sports cars to $100 wrecks. The list price of disk in my empeg is more than $300 you think would be a reasonable price for homemade solution. A colegue of mine had a similar idea, then sat down and started to calculate. If one wants any sort of decent display, remote, connectivity, good disks, good sound output, solid dual mode power supply and case smaller than desktop PC, the price comes pretty close. Of course, one can simply stuff any ancient PC in the trunk and use something like X10 remote as UI, but it's like saying that my $8000 car is a status symbol because I could have driven to work on a lawn mower equiped with umbrella.

There are (announced) cheaper solutions with fewer features, such as several MP3 CD changer emulators (as far as I understand, guys@empeg designed at least one). Now we can talk about paying twice as much for empeg for, say, 30% or 50% more features. But then, its usually so for high-end products.


Dragi "Bonzi" Raos
Zagreb, Croatia
Q#5196, MkII#80000376, 18GB green

Perhaps you long for the "good old days" when Jaguar ranked just about equal with Yugo in terms of build quality, reliability, and number of problems repaired under warranty in the first month of ownership.

Now I am offended. Nothing could possibly be built as poorly as Yugo. I know what I am talking about, I owned one. (First month or two repairs: water pump, seat belts, driver seat, gearbox - it didn't go into reverse, clutch pack, windshield leaks...)

Do you remember Lucas electrical equipment?

Lucas, a.k.a. the Prince of darkness

Cheers!

Dragi "Bonzi" Raos
Zagreb, Croatia
Q#5196, MkII#80000376, 18GB green

(First month or two repairs: water pump, seat belts, driver seat, gearbox - it didn't go into reverse, clutch pack, windshield leaks...)

You could just as well be talking about a Jaguar of the 1980s! Really. The incredibly arrogant and incompetent labor unions of that period did their very best to kill Jaguar just as they did all the other English marques, and very nearly succeeded. Surveys of quality control issues of that era placed Jaguar very near the bottom of the list.

Lucas, a.k.a. the Prince of darkness

Do you know why the English drink warm beer? Lucas refrigerators!

tanstaafl.





"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

You could just as well be talking about a Jaguar of the 1980s!

My 1985 Jaguar Sovereign was the best car I ever owned. It was 12 years old when I got it, but I got a full service history and it hadn't needed any more work than I'd expect from any car. I had it for 18 months and it didn't see a mechanic in that time.

There were two extra nice things about that car:

1. It was the last of the rounded series 3 models, which had so much character compared with the later square series 4 (thank god they reverted back to that shape recently)

2. It was originally owned by a chairman of NatWest Group, my employer at the time. It was nice pulling onto the forecourt at work in a car with that kind of history!

It was the best car I ever owned, the most powerful and the most fun. Unfortunately it was a little heavy to throw into bends in the wet, which is why I was it's final owner *sniff*

Rob

Strange but true fact: the tyre spec number for that Jag can be found somewhere in the StrongARM Linux kernel source. Mike made a note of it for me when my tyre was slashed one time, didn't notice where he was typing it, and there it remains!

It was 12 years old when I got it,

My point exactly. You can bet the original owner had a lot more problems with it than you ever did. Once he spent enough time and money fixing all the things the factory had assembled incorrectly, then it became a truly marvelous car.

tanstaafl.

"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

Yeah but I have the service history - and I know for a fact that every penny NatWest Bank spent on that car would have been through the original dealer, and stamped into the service history.

It just had the usual stuff - a few hoses, an alternator, that sort of thing.

Anyway, it doesn't matter, it was still the finest motor car on the road. Nothing has the same style. Shame about the series 4 though.

Rob

I would like to add a few points to this discussion.

1) The empeg is actually competitively priced with other top end car stereos with unique features. My Alpine with video capabilities has a price of $1200. This is right inline with empegs pricing.

2) However, with this said we must remember that like my Alpine, all other car audio equipment is sold through dealers at a huge markup. I think we should be happy that empeg doesn't sell through dealers because then the price would be $2000 for the base model for us consumers. I don't ever want to see the empeg car in the hands of dealers.

I'd also like to add that it was a lot easier to hand over the money for the empeg than it was for the Alpine.

Alex Lear

Hmm...Rob you buggar..... how could you do that to a Jag??????

-------------
MK II, (Blue but should be Amber) SN: 118

The incredibly arrogant and incompetent labor unions of that period did their very best to kill Jaguar just as they did all the other English marques

Doug... although I agree with the observed results, you have got the wrong track here. All you need to do is change two words {"Labour Unions"} for the correct one:

"Management"

There had to be some reason why the workers were revolting, you know...

How about:

- Low wages
- punitive working practices
- bad working conditions
- underinvestment in factories
- underinvestment in product development
- no market vision or research
- internicene wars between directors of different marque factory management teams
- duplication of model ranges
- model overpricing and low sales (that persist to this day)
- arrogance and ignorance in the face of market opinion (that persist to this day)
- monopolistic sales practices (that persist to this day)
- etc. etc. etc.

Wouldn't you be p****** off working in that sort of environment? Wouldn't your morale and productivity be pretty low in that situation?

It can all be boiled down to one thing: Total Managerial Incompetence.

You will note, I hope, the marques that did manage to survive the longest within the Leyland/BL combine disaster were (curiously) Rover, Triumph, Jaguar. Coincidence? Or was it because they were marques that always had a good product and decent management before the buyouts/mergers and the bloodletting in the boardrooms that followed?

One of the few remaining Mk1 owners... #00015