I know I said I'd start writing Pt. 2 of this review a week ago, but I have been having too much fun playing with the player!

Packaging: Not a whole lot to say here. Everything was securely packaged. Also, empeg threw in a carrying case (which was supposed to expire in December). But I guess they won't have much need for "empeg" carrying cases once the SonicBlue transaction is finallized. They also included a sticker and a static sticker. Cool. I don't think I will put the stickers anywhere near my car (don't want to advertise what I have in my car), but I will surely find a use for them. Several owners have complained that the manual is too brief, but I disagree. It is enough to get you going. If you are someone who is considering an empeg, you are probably "techy" enough to figure everything out. Also, the features seem to be getting better and better with every new software release, so a detailed manual would soon be out-of-date. BUT, that does not mean this manual isn't detailed enough.. (I would still refer to the forum here for the latest info...) One thing that surprised me was the the unit shipped with 1.0 software and not 1.02...

Install of the software and connection to a PC is a snap. Once that was done (five minutes), I was loading my first music! Ever since my first portable cd player back in 1989, I have always "tested" a system with "down in it" by nine inch nails. Sort of a little tradition for me... No exception here! That song has been used to demo that little CD player, a "bass tube"in the old 'scort, several MD decks, a 5.1 Infinity system, several hi-end headphones and now my empeg!

Emplode Software: Easy and very intuitive. One cool feature that came in handy after loading about 4 gigs of music was the "export to CSV." Basically, you can export a spreadsheet of your database to a "Comma Seperated Values" document. I opened it in Microsoft Excel and was able to see all my files. I found some with incorrect ID3 tags and then fixed them (back in emplode). Very cool. Now, while you are waiting for your empeg to ship, I really recommend going through and making sure all your mp3's have the correct song, artists and album info. Personally, I think that the "year" field is of trivial use at best, but it really depends on your music collection. Either way, it will give you something to do while you wait for your empeg to ship and it will save you a lot of time. BUT, updating ID3 info with the software is very easy, so don't worry too much. Transfering files via the USB connection is VERY fast (and easy).

Empeg Software: Very intuitive even without reading the manual. The visuals are cool too. That is what really impresses most people! (Forget that you can store 200 hours of music!) What is great about having so many visuals is that there is always one to suit the type of music you are listening to. I thought I wouldn't use the remote, but once I learned what all the buttons did, it became a very powerful tool. Especially with its "Search" feature and logical guessing. I'd love to go into detail of all these features, but I'd be here forever! :) (Just post a Question and I'll answer it.) I do recommend learning to use the unit WITHOUT the remote first. That way, all you have to do is learn what the equivelant buttons on the remote are.

Sound Quality: That is one thing I can't really comment on. I don't have this hooked up to a car system yet. I have listened to it on $400 computer speakers and a friend's Bose home system and it sounded great. But until I get it hoooked up to a car system, I wont really know. The car side of the electronics have 4 volt outputs (a feature only found on hi-end car decks) and Burr-Brown DA converters (a very well respected component).

Overall: I thought I'd be super excited to get this thing and then as the time went on, I'd get "used" to it. Quite the opposite. The more and more I use it, the more I fall in love with it! I have over 1200 songs on it encoded at 160kps and it is only 1/2 full! (12 gig model). I figure that the 12 gig will keep me busy for quite a while. By the time I am ready for another drive, I will get the 30 gig add-on drive and be set for life! I thought that I'd have fun playing with this thing for a few months before I'd put it in a car.... NOPE! I am so hooked on this thing that I can't STAND being in my car with out it!

The best part of having the empeg is the power it gives you (I'm not talking the Popeye type power here). I just love the fact that not only can I have an entire music collection in my hands (to hook up to a car, a home system, a notebook, a PC etc) but that I can organize it HOW I WANT and find any song within seconds! So, right now, I am at work with it hooked up to my notebook. When I go home, I will hook it up to my PC. Soon, it will be in my car too. 1200 OF MY FAVORITE SONGS! And it is only half full! AND IT HAS AN EMPTY DRIVE BAY! I really can't explain the feeling!

The evolution of "Down In It":
1. That CD player: Ahh... digital sound quality! But, skips like crazy, only portable if you like cords all over the place. CD's scratch. I can only load an hour or so's worth of music. I have to look at the packaging to see the names of the songs...

2. That MD deck... Ahh... good sound quality (with the 3rd generation ATRAC). Doesn't skip, won't scratch and I can program in the names of songs. AND I can re and re and re-record. But, I need a seperate home deck and car deck. And, I still can only load a an hour or so's worth of music.

3. empeg... Great sound, won't skip, wont scratch, can program in track names (and album titles, genre and date) and I can load about 170 MD's worth at a time. AND, on the fly, I can append any playlist. AND it can be removed from the car. AND it is expandable and upgradable (features you don't realize you need til you've got them!) AND I can have a song appear as many times in a playlist but only take up the drive space of a single file.

One cool thing I have done is ask my friends to let me borrow 3 of their favorite CD's. I have them all loaded on the empeg, so if they are ever in my car, I will be sure to have that CD on file! (Just don't tell the record labels I'm doing this!) I own about 400 CD's, so the recording industry has made plenty of money off of me. I bring in about 5 CD's a day to work and rip them with my notebook computer and then transfer them to my empeg..

I'd love to write more, but I am going to go update some ID3 tags of tracks I got off of Napster. I will post comments about my install too. (I own a Ford Focus, so I have been going to the Focus Forums on the net and asking Questions and telling everyone about the empeg!)

12gig Mk. II BLUE
Detroit, MI USA
www.PfeifferBeer.com

I found some with incorrect ID3 tags and then fixed them (back in emplode).

When doing this, always keep in mind one important thing:

When you fix the song information in Emplode, you're only editing the empeg's music database. The actual ID3 tags of the MP3 files on the hard disk are not touched.

And I'm not just talking about the MP3 files on your PC's hard disk. I also mean the MP3 files that are stored on the empeg. Those aren't altered at all, they're copied verbatim to the empeg and then not changed.

So this means that, should you ever need to recover the music files from the Empeg (say, your PC's hard disk crashes and you use some kind of third-party method to extract the MP3s from the empeg), you will be getting the old, incorrect tag information back from it.

This actually bit me in a few cases when one of my empeg's hard disks failed. The database had to be rebuilt from scratch and some of the song tags were wrong, both on my PC and what was remaining on the empeg's hard disk.

Just something to keep in mind.

___________
Tony Fabris

...I am going to go update some ID3 tags of tracks I got off of Napster.

I would be curious to know if you are satisfied with the quality of the Napster tracks.

tanstaafl.

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

I would be curious to know if you are satisfied with the quality of the Napster tracks.

Not a good measure. The napster tracks will be hit-and-miss. He might get good ones, he might get bad ones.

It's because napster itself isn't responsible for the ripping. Napster is just an index server allowing miscellaneous users on the 'net to share files. So it's up to the napster-using public to encode their tracks properly.

___________
Tony Fabris

I think that the "year" field is of trivial use at best, but it really depends on your music collection.

The "year" field allows you to sort your playlists chronologically in emplode (e.g. artist playlists). Very nice feature, except it's totally defeated by the player's insistance on only showing playlists in alphabetical order.

Guys@empeg, please let us display playlists in play order, or at least tell us why not ("alphabetical shortcuts won't work" doesn't count). Pretty please.

Borislav

About ID3 tags...
That is a very good point... I am not a good enough "hacker" yet to be able to remove the mp3's from my empeg to another PC, but I hope to learn that one day to do a backup to a cheap IDE drive...

About Napster...
True, Napster is very hit and miss. But, I only download stuff I "kinda" like anyway. I will always buy CD's of artists I truely like... But, one cool thing about Winamp is that you can listen to the songs after you have downloaded a few seconds of the mp3. That way, you can tell if you want to look for another copy. However, I can only "pre-view" on computer speakers, so I am really looking forward to putting the empeg in my car so I can really tell. That is another cool thing about the empeg... you can easily replace the file! With CD-R based systems, you would have to re-record the whole disc after replacing the file!

About track year...
Like I said, it really depends on your music collection. I have no interest in sorting by year, but I can see how some people would. Even so, I have gone through and added year info to my tracks because it looks better in the "Track Info" view! :)

12gig Mk. II BLUE
Detroit, MI USA
www.PfeifferBeer.com

Granted, it's all relative... I find that the Year search is fun for quickly finding the new albums I forgot I bought since the Empeg arrived. I've been rediscovering so much of my old music, sometime the modern stuff gets lost "in the shuffle."

Brian H. Johnson
MK2 36GB Blue
"Born to Lose..."

And you can't beat it as a demo. For instance, punching "1984" into the empeg and scrolling through shuffled tracks from that year. People always seem to get a real kick out of that feature, even though it's not something you'd tend to use in real life.

___________
Tony Fabris

Hmm, I do. Hence the feature :)

Hugo