In reply to:

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Hmm.. I find their review of the MPTrip mp3 player disturbing

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Having read their reviews of both the Empeg and the MPTrip, it's apparant (to me, at least) that they're reviewing both items from the POV of Joe Public. The reason they rave about the MPTrim (even when criticising it - see the bit about the inbuilt record option) and not the Empeg is that the Empeg is all new; it's a completely new way of doing things. The MPTrim, on the other hand, is nothing new - basically it's just a CD player with extra capacity. The MPTrim is a much easier device for a journalist to review.

All this wouldn't be too great a problem but, unfortunately, the Empeg manual isn't very good at explaining exactly what can be done and how to do it.

By way of example, there's no mention of:

Dimmer,
Fader (rear/front),
Loudness,
Function of remote's number buttons during playback,
The entire 'settings' menu,
The musical notes icon in the playlist menu,
All the icons Emplode uses

And there are a few more.

It would be hardly surprising if a reviewer doesn't 'get' the full flexibility of playlists during the shortish time they'll have the unit for review.

Another example - Several of my work colleagues couldn't read the text in the image on page 16 because it was so small. The image is pretty crucial in explaining how playlists work, yet the text size is so small as to make the image look like a fancy page filler.

Now, I'm not having a go at anybody here or the guys at Empeg. I'm a fiddler and I'm quite happy to experiment on my own. I guess everybody here is pretty much the same.

However, is it realistic to hand a reviewer a unit and the present manual and expect them to sing their praises from on high?

Oh, and the other thing - I'd put good money on the fact that most of the Empegs to be reviewed in the popular press won't get anywhere near a car for the duration of the testing.

Nick.



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