Another follow up reply, to respond to some points you raised...

Quote:
i have an audio with the bose system so it would integrate nicely. ... i don't have another car to put it in...

Is there simply no way on earth that you can install the empeg into the Audi dash? Or have you just not talked to any installers who are willing to do custom work?

My opinion... Any amount of money I'd have to spend on custom work to get the empeg installed in the dash is going to be worth it.

Quote:
I guess my initial thoughts are: usb 2.0 is awesome,

The first time you load all your tunes into it, yeah. After that, loading a couple albums at a time and it's not that much different from ethernet. And keep in mind that your empeg is already loaded up.

Quote:
and the software has GOT to be better than emplode (no offense!).

None taken, but keep in mind that the software you need to worry about isn't the loader software, it's the player software. The user interface to the Phatnoise is basically as interactive as a CD changer. You have discs and tracks and you press next track and previous track, next disc and previous disc.

If that's all you ever want to do, then fine. But think of all the other features in the empeg software that you wouldn't have... Title searching, tweak order, least-recently-played shuffle, bookmarks, all of the features in Hijack such as dynamic range compression, the ability to set a fixed boot up volume, etc. Not to mention (with alpha software) playback of Ogg and Flac, crossfade, etc...

And have you seen Emphatic yet?

If you really honestly don't care about any of those things, then definitely sell the player to someone who will, and get the phatnoise.

Quote:
also, surely the empeg is going to die *eventually*...mine is over 2 years old now.

Okay, consider this.

The empeg has pretty much two "big" components that will break on you over time: Hard disk (easy and cheap to replace), VFD display (hard to replace but it would only need to be replaced if you broke it). But at least there's an active user community here to help you if any of that happens.

Now... when the warranty on that phatnoise runs out, how confinent are you with the user community that supports it? I mean, compared to the people here on this BBS...

Quote:
but $399 has me saying hmm

Yeah, "Hmmm, a really big CD changer for $399..."

Quote:
so i have both a cd player with a tuner and my empeg in my audi which is a TIGHT fit - in fact, it's all pulled apart right now because i pulled a wire apart when pushing it in there, got it all plugged back up but am struggling with fitting that whole rig in my dash

I thought the empeg wouldn't fit in the Audi at all and that's why you're considering selling it. You're saying that there's room to fit the empeg and a CD player, and you're just simply having a little custom-fitting trouble? I'd say... go to whatever trouble is necessary to fit it, enlist professional help if needed.

Quote:
any opinions are most welcome!

Well, um... there it is.
_________________________
Tony Fabris