I dug out my main empeg last night to update the music on, to then take to the office for use at my desk. My empeg power brick was at work, so I began searching my house for one that would work with the empeg. I ended up finding 3 different ones with the correct polarity, and proper plug, and all claiming 12v and 1.25A as a minimum. And all three were clearly lying about the power they could provide, as one by one they would power on the empeg, spin up disk 1, then try to spin up disk 2. It would take about 3-4 tries to get the disk spinning, then the player would state Failed to unmask IDE.

Thankfully nothing was wrong with the player, as I took it into work, used the Sunpower 12x 1A brick, and it powered right up with no stuttering.

I just looked at the original brick I recieved with my Mk2. It's rated 15v@1amp. It's also suspiciously lite compared to the Netgear [email protected] brick I have handy. The same Netgear brick will run my empeg but poorly, the led keeps ramping up and down in brightness.
Come to think about it most car batteries output something more like 14v.

FWIW my empeg's wart is labeled:

Sunpower
Model: WA15-150
INPUT: 100-150VAC A.0A / 47-63Hz
OUTPUT: +15VDC@1A

also
91-58026
KENTEX ELECTRONIC CO LTD
TIAWAN

Quality does seem to vary. The original Mk2a 120V power supplies are 1A@12V, Model No. NP12-1S1210.

My original power brick failed. I replaced it with an IBM laptop one which works great.

I suspect the netgear is a transformer, whereas the empeg one is a switch-mode psu. The netgear one is probably drooping its output significantly at the max load, whereas the empeg one isn't

Hugo