I have had my empeg player for 4 days now and I thought I post a little preliminary review. It is probably safe to assume that you are reading this review because you are in the same position I was about a week or two ago: You really think the empeg sounds like a great idea, but you aren't quite sure whether you should wait until it gets further developed or if it's worth the money... Well, read on.
For starters, buying my empeg was anything BUT an "impulse buy." In fact, I had been visiting the www.empeg.com site and this forum for several years. Before the first Mk. I players were shipped, I was on the original waiting list. Back then, one had to wait several months to even get the chance to buy one. There were several other factors that made me not get one as well. First of all, I have a CD collection that has about 450 CD's in it. The only model that could hold that much music was still too expensive for me. Also, the product itself was very "spartan" in that you could tell it wasn't quite on the level of a finished product by Sony or Kenwood for example. I decided that my MD player would do just fine for the time being. So, I continualy returned to the website and kept an eye on its development.
Then, last year, empeg started making their Mk. II players. It was a big improvment. It offered more connection options, more RAM, a more finished look and a better face. More importantly, drive capacity increased. Once again, I started considering the purchase of an empeg. The model that seemed the most appealing was the 12 gig. It was only $100 more than the 6 gig model and had twice the capacity. The 12 gig model holds approx. 200 hours of music for MP3's encoded at 128kps. While this wasn't going to hold my entire music collection, the 12 gig model has an empty drive bay. I figured that the 12 gig would keep me busy for quite a while. By the time I needed more capacity, hopefully a 20-30 gig add-on drive wouldn't be too expensive.
But I still wasn't convinced. But there were a few things that changed my mind. A fellow empeg owner, Chip, post an mpeg movie clip of his empeg player in action on his
Web Page. This video clip really showed me what the visuals could do. You really won't get a good idea of how cool the visual are until you see them in person or on this video. I was really impressed with his empeg and his is a Mk. I, so I knew that the Mk. II would be even a bit cooler. Another thing that helped was reviews on the forum and by online magazines. (Just do a search on "Reviews"). Another thing that made me want to "buy now" was the purchase of empeg by Sonicblue, Inc. At first I felt maybe I should wait to see what happens to the company, but I know now that the empeg players will continue to be supported. Also, if Sonicblue is forced to do any silly "mp3 tracking" or anything, my empeg won't be affected. But, by far, the thing that convinced me to get this player was this forum. By reading the forum, I realized how great it is to have actual programers for empeg, ltd. offering their suggestions and listening to ours. Also, the take any sort of bugs that people find very seriously. Any question that I have asked on the forum has been answered very professionally and thoughtfully. The FAQ section of the forum is great too. So, in the week before I placed my order, I asked dozens of questions on this forum.
So when are you going to review the empeg Brad?! Ok, I'll get to that. First of all, I'd like to review the ordering process. The empeg player can be ordered very quickly from the webpage. What an improvment from the old "take a number and get in line" days! Also, empeg does offer a toll-free number for those of us in the USA, so that was a bonus. One thing that I was disappointed about was the fact that I never got a confirmation email about my order or an email that it was shipped. I have heard that this is not normal, however, and it may have been due to the fact that some of the empeg staff was at the CES trade show in Las Vegas. But, a quick call to the toll-free number got me a FedEx tracking number. I ordered the unit on a Tuesday afternoon. It was after business hours in the UK, so empeg shipped my player on Wednesday. Thursday, it was in the US, but it got caught up in customs. Darn! I guess several people have had this problem. But, FedEx called me, faxed me some duty papers to sign. And within several hours, my player was back in route. I have heard that some people in the past have gotten their players caught in customs for up to a week, but this is not the case anymore. I have also heard that I can expect to get a bill from FedEx to cover any duty fees they incured. Oh well. So, on Friday morning at 10 am, I had my player! If I had ordered it earlier on Tuesday, I would have gotten it a day earlier too!
It seems my "little" review has gotten quite long and I havn't even opened the box yet! I will talk about the actual player in Pt. 2 if anyone is interested. But, I know I had plenty of questions about the actual ordering process and what led others to actually buy a player that my "Pt. 1" should help a few of those "annonymous" surfers out there!
12gig Mk. II BLUE
Detroit, MI USA
www.PfeifferBeer.com
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