Has anyone with decent ears compared the sound quality of the Empeg versus, say, the Via AC'97 codec audio found in Epia-M single-board PCs, or versus a high quality sound card?

How about systems for the protection of hard drives in an automotive environment. Does anything available commercially compare with what the Empeg provides?

The above questions bear relevance to the use of in-car PCs for music. I currently use the Empeg in conjunction with a bottom of the line Epia board (epiaV) and a very small hard drive with enough space for Windows XP and EMSC only, for my car music (($250 total). Storage of the MP3s is in the Empeg, sound generation is in the Empeg, and car-smart power management is in the Empeg.

With some work I could get the exact same functionality without using the Empeg (I don't have the Empeg in-dash, but rather use a VGA display). This will require storage of the MP3s in the PC's drives; use of the built-in sound of an Epia-M (twice as expensive as the Epia-V), a high quality sound card, or digital car amplifier; and an expensive ($180) Opus DC-DC power supply that is car-smart.

So I could remove the Empeg (for use in my room, kitchen, etc.) from the car by spending about $300 on better stuff for the car PC, which is about the current value of a drive-less Empeg.

The questions I have are: would such a thing sound better or worse than the Empeg? Will I be able to get a drive cage of sorts that will protect the drives with the MP3s as well as the empeg does?

What do you guys think?

If you choose to switch to an in-car-computer system, the sound quality and the drive shock protection will be the least of your worries. I think your concern will be mostly with the reliability of the various PC components and with the usability of the software.

Anyone can slap an LCD and a hard drive onto a computer board and make a car MP3 player. It's the features and the reliability of the empeg that make it so good.

To answer your questions directly:

The empeg's output DSP was made for high quality car CD players and in theory will sound better than a PC sound card. But the difference would be minor.

The empeg's hard drive shock mount mechanism is custom made, so you won't find anything like it off-the-shelf. But with a little work I'm sure you could fashion something similar on your own.

So you could do the car-PC thing, yes. The question is whether you can do it without it being a mess of ground loops, without a bunch of components failing due to heat, without nasty pops coming through your amplifier when you turn it on and off, without having to wait two minutes for it to boot up, without having to struggle with software that wasn't designed for car use, and without contstantly wishing for some of the empeg's features.

Why are you considering switching to a PC?

I had an epia based board I was going to do the car PC thing I can tell you first hand the sound quality SUCKS BIG TIME it was muddy, distorted and full of artifacts.

AC97 sucks. It mandates a 48KHz sample rate whereas CDs are 44.1KHz, thus forcing resampling and resulting in artifacts.

In theory a good (non-AC97) soundcard would compare to the empeg. Prosumer soundcards such as those from M-Audio are excellent, but pricey. You'd still have to deal with all the other issues that Tony mentioned though.

With some work I could get the exact same functionality without using the Empeg


Perhaps with a lot of work... but probably not even then. It is my understanding that there is more than 10 man-years of development time in the empeg's software. That's what makes the empeg the extraordinary device that it is.

Sony or Panasonic or <your-favorite-manufacturer-here> could whip out hardware to equal or surpass the empeg in very little time (compared to the year+ it took the empeg to go from concept to market) but without the software to run it, it would be of little utility.

When Sonic Blue bought empeg, they weren't interested in the car player; they paid several million dollars (just guessing here, no real inside knowledge) for the programming team that developed the empeg software.

How were you planning on controlling your in-car PC? A mouse and keyboard is not really practical in a moving car. Perhaps a touch screen, but that requires you to take your eyes off the road to operate it. Maybe could get voice recognition to work, but the guys @ empeg were never able to do it, and they do have some small amount of competence.

Take a long, hard look at what functionality you are trying to attain, and then figure out how you are going to do it before you start ordering parts.

tanstaafl.

>>Why are you considering switching to a PC?

I don't have dash space for my Empeg. I have a factory navigation system with a very nice screen and auxiliary a/v input. For about a year I had the Empeg in the glovebox and used the audio portion of the auxiliary to feed the in-built amplifier. Of course I missed being able to see what was playing and being able to dynamically control the Empeg while driving. I really needed an Empeg with a VGA display I could feed to my Nav screen. Such a thing did not exist. So I built software to control my empeg and provide me with a an interface, this runs efficiently in a 600 mgh epia-V with 128mg ram and an old 8 gig hard drive of which only 3gb are in use. Once the system boots and the app loads there is no access to the hard drive since this is the only software that runs. This software implements all of the functionality of the Empeg that I particularly use:

Display of Track view, now and next view (but now simultaneously)
tweak orders
playlist navigation (replace, insert, enqueue, append, shuffle in),
Search (not just from start of field)
Control via the rio-remote or my Pioneer steering wheel remote (or any remote suported by WinLirc).

There are many things the Empeg does that it does not do, but those are things I don't particularly use (e.g., visuals, etc.). And the search facility in this software is more effective for me than the Empeg's.

This has been working great for some time. No problems. The Empeg is my storage, my sound card, and my power management (empeg wakes up the PC, the PC shuts down 2 minutes after the empeg goes on standby). The empeg does not manage my playlists or running order. So I can replace the empeg by storing the music in the PC's hard drives, using a good sound card, and using a power supply designed for car computer use (e.g., the Opus power supply). At present, the cost of adding these things to the setup are equivalent to the cost of the Empeg. So economically its a wash. I was wondering about the sound quality and the life of the drives, cause I might just bring that Empeg permanently into the house. Plus the Empegs are no longer made....

>>Perhaps with a lot of work... but probably not even then.

Most of the Empeg functionality that I use or care for already exists in EMSC. It can be controlled with conventional IR remotes, including the Rio Remote. To make this software work without the Empeg only requires looking for the mp3's in a local drive rather than in a remote drive (when I use EMSC in streaming mode). So in my case, its a hardware issue, not a software issue. Can I make a PC sound as good or better than the Empeg? Can I shock protect the drives in a PC as well as the Empeg does? And how does the cost of doing so compare with the going cost of an Empeg?

Please don't get me wrong. I am as die-hard an Empeg fan as anyone in this board. I have three of them. They are amazing machines. But they are designed for single-din monochrome display (perhpas the only thing I dislike about the Empeg when installed in-dash, is the visibility of the display under a bright sun).

I don't have dash space for my Empeg. I have a factory navigation system with a very nice screen and auxiliary a/v input.

OK, I can see that as being an issue. And since the empeg was never out where you could really use it to begin with, you won't really miss its features. Ah well. Another one bites the dust to factory system integration.

Aren't there external USB2 drives with added shock protection that can also be powered via the USB cable?

There ought to be, but I don't know of any, or of how good the shock protection in them is. Does anyone know of such enclosures?

IMO you will be fine with hard drive mounting as long as you are smart and use 2.5 inch drives. I hear a lot of people complaining over a Mp3car.com's forums that their drives ate the dust and guess what they all use 3.5 inch drives (can you say duh?). As far as trying to replicate the other features of the empeg I believe the biggest one and most difficult to replicate with a homebuilt setup is the docking functionality. You need docking functionality unless you plan on leaving your system in the car all the time which is dumb because this will drastically reduce your hard drive life and increase your chance of theft.

In addition, you can set up a fairly substantial buffer to avoid skipping of music (I imagine).

Thanks for the 3.5" vs 2.5" observation. I was thinking of the cheaper 3.5" drive, since space is not an issue. But I guess 2.5" is the way to go.

The intention is to permanently have the PC in the trunk, although I could have sockets and plugs for power, sound and VGA, which would allow for easy removal. I don't understand, what does docking not docking that have to do with drive life?

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The intention is to permanently have the PC in the trunk, although I could have sockets and plugs for power, sound and VGA, which would allow for easy removal. I don't understand, what does docking not docking that have to do with drive life?

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Tempature- even if you live in sunny CA or somewhere having your hard drive exposed to massive tempature changes you get in a car means it's life will be shortened.

Does anyone know of some established, detailed listing of Empeg player software features? If such a list exists, then a survey of whether each feature is essential, used frequently, used infrequently, or not used, would be a great thing.

Anything missing from the following list?

-Navigational, hierarchical playlists.
-Replace, Insert, Enqueue, Append playlists/tracks to running order.
-Search by title, artist, year, album; and Replace, Insert, Enqueue, Append the result to running order.
-Select next track to be of same title, artist, album, year.
-Discard all remaining tracks in running order that match current title, artist, album, year.
-Flags and Filters.
-Criteria weighted shuffling.
-Info modes used: track, now & next, seek tool, transient, line, transient.
-Customization of individual portions of info modes (i.e., time display).
-Visuals.
-Bookmarks.
-Sound control: volume, loudness, balance, fader, equalization. (these would be used by users that control these things via Empeg rather than by a head unit with the same features)
-Beeps

Those are the big ones, for sure.

Hijack adds a few good ones that I like:

- Monitor internal unit temperature from the main screen.
- Audio dynamic range compression.
- Force the boot-up volume to be at a predetermined (low) level.
- Left/Right listening position adjustment (time delay alignment)
- Infrared code translation

Each of those could theoretically, with a certain amount of work, be implemented in a PC.

and using a power supply designed for car computer use (e.g., the Opus power supply

An alternative to the Opus is an Auto Power Sequencer and Low Dropout Regulator.

See http://www.mini-box.com/itps.htm

Darn. I bought an Opus for $180 about a month ago

From what I hear, you can never go wrong with Opus.

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Hijack adds a few good ones that I like:

- Monitor internal unit temperature from the main screen.
- Audio dynamic range compression.
- Force the boot-up volume to be at a predetermined (low) level.
- Left/Right listening position adjustment (time delay alignment)
- Infrared code translation

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Not to mention Cross-fade and pitch changing.
Now here's something funny- mpxplay a DOS-only MP3 player can do cross-fade now (name a player on a 32-bit OS that can!).. that blows my mind. Funny but I think if you wanted to duplicate (most of) the features of the Empeg on a CarPC with the least fuss MPXplay would be the way to go. Near-instant boot-up (DOS) and nice features from the look of it.

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... can do cross-fade now (name a player on a 32-bit OS that can!)

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Er, XMMS with the crossfade plugin? At least, that's what I've been using for the last few years (on the few occasions I don't have my player in the office).