and it is already broken 4 months after I order it, and it works for less then 12 hours

I managed to rip 2 CDs yesterday when I got it, and this morning NOTHING. I put it on standby last night, turned the display off and went to sleep. This morning, I cannot convince it to power up.

Anyone seen this? Any ideas?



Richard

Hmmm.

Have you tried cycling the power using the power switch on the back of the unit?

Actually, I'm assuming the production versions even have a power switch. Maybe unplugging it and re-plugging it will be enough. If not, definitely contact support.

Yup - tried that Both switch and unplugging don't help at all.

I will contact support on Monday - hope they're more responsive than Rio have been for me in the past.

I wonder if the Cambridge team is handling support for that product or not?

No, the only support function in Cambridge is David (part time). We're trying hard to be a pure R&D office, which was more or less what was promised to us 16 months ago! Hence the store closing now (although I waited for the orders to tail off first).

SB customer support is undergoing some major changes at the moment, hopefully for the better!

In this instance, I haven't heard of reliability problems with the Central, although this will be one of the first units out of a new production batch (sales somewhat exceeded the pre-production expectation which is why some unfortunate customers have had to wait a few months).

Rob

Maybe it's just a loose hard drive cable.

I hope you absorb David into the R&D staff - he is a major asset to your company!

PS - What currently available products have the Cambridge team been a part of?

PS - What currently available products have the Cambridge team been a part of?

At the time of this writing, the three things to which the BBS's are devoted to:

- Empeg/Rio Car players
- Rio Receiver
- Rio Central (HSX-109 Digital Audio Center)

The other stuff they're working on has not yet seen the light of day. Although I'm sure it's trying to claw its way out.

There will be some major products from us out this autumn, but nothing that's going to excite anyone here. Hopefully we'll get some other stuff out in the not-too-distant future that will be more interesting.

I also hope to take some concepts and fun things to the Amersfoort meet next month.

Rob

I also hope to take some concepts and fun things to the Amersfoort meet next month.

Or you can FedEx them to me and I will take them to the Boston meet on Saturday.

You may think that some items will not be of interest to us, but if I was in the market for a toaster oven, I'd probably buy one that you guys worked on as opposed to one that you didn't. My point is that if you guys worked on the Replay 4000, maybe there should be a section of the forum here for it (even if there is another one elsewhere on the web) so that empeg owners may have their loyalty extend to other products developed by you. A side benefit would be Replay fans (for example) wander to this BBS and find out about the Central etc...

Rob - (don't mean to sway this thread off-topic) but... - sweet car you are standing in front of! Is that from the Detroit Auto Show or New York? (WRC Impreza)

sweet car you are standing in front of! Is that from the Detroit Auto Show or New York?

I think that's a cut-and-paste actually.

Could be wrong, but it looks like it. Guess it could be an auto-show shot, too, I suppose...

It's from the NY Auto Show. You can see the full pic here:
http://spmicro.com/gallery/nyautoshow02/aad?full=1

Nope, not a cut and paste job. I never really liked the old BBS pic and this was the only recent one I could find. I will probably change it again as soon as I get something better. I don't own a WRX, so the pic is kind-of misleading. I just like it much better than the old one.

Well, that car behind you is about $500,000 to build, so people will probably accept that most of us can't afford one .

I would have thought it was a cut and paste too, but they had the same angled display in Detriot, so I recognised it.

Ah, cool. What got me was that the lighting on the face was different from the lighting on the car. Seeing the whole photo, I can now see why that was the case.

As and when we contribute to the Replay product I'm sure there won't be a problem with making that known. You'll be able to work it out anyway, given that we're the Audio Applications team, while the guys in Santa Clara are the Video Applications team.

I wasn't referring to Replay, though.

Rob

In reply to:

---

although this will be one of the first units out of a new production batch (sales somewhat exceeded the pre-production expectation which is why some unfortunate customers have had to wait a few months).

---

Well, its good to hear that the Rio Central is selling better than expected.
Hopefully this success is a sign of things to come for other (yet to be released) audio products.

Anyone know how can I open the case? I have taken the six screws out, and still can't find a way in. My email has gone unanswered at Rio CS - and I can't make a phone call until Wednesday at the earliest.

So I'm just tinkering around

Cheers,
Richard

There are magic pressure points, ISTR they are about 3" in from the front and back of the unit (4 in total), you need to press in on the bottom half of the plastics to release an internal clip with gentle pressure lifting the top half - the top should pop off then.

Obviously, this voids your warranty, there is an exposed PSU inside which you shouldn't touch, no user servicable parts inside, etc etc. Disclaimer, disclaimer. My guess is that the display board ribbon has come adrift. If you do a power cycle, does the display light at all (and you just can't get it out of standby) or otherwise?

Hugo

There is no sticker on the case which says taking the lid off voids my warranty... Hmmm.

I don't think it is the ribbon, as the CD tray doesn't eject. So I think something in the startup sequence is failing. I don't hear the hard drive coming up to speed at all - sometimes I hear the heads drop, but most of the time there is the faint noise which sounds like the HD trying to start up.

If it was "just" a ribbon disconnect, that shouldn't affect the CD player too, should it? Then again, I could be wrong

I'm obviously clutching at straws and need to get in touch with CS.

Cheers,
Richard

The eject button is linked by the same ribbon to the main board. Eject is NOT linked to the eject button on the actual drive, eject is an input to the main board which then under software control will send an eject command to the drive over IDE.

Possibly, in that case, the IDE ribbon is partly disconnected or even the PSU is dead. The HDD/CDROM power supplies come from the main board - again, check connectors.

Hugo