Maplin have just sent me this in their weekly newsletter!

£180 for an 10Gb incar mp3 player! It's got to be worth that!

I know it's no where near the empeg for features, but hell, a bargin is still a bargin (or am I missing something here?)

Cheers

Cris.

Is that the original Neo?

Yeah, definately is. They were sold very cheaply about the same time as I bought my empeg (UK distributor Traxdata went bust) - I very nearly bought one until I saw the empeg for only a bit more.

Gareth

Greetings!

My personal recommendation would be not to get the Neo and get an empeg. My reasons / logic are as follows:

1) I am baised, as everyone here knows
2) There are at least three players for sale on the board at this moment ranging from $500-$700 1 2 3 4
3) If the Neo advertised is about $360, the empeg is less than double the price.
4) There are a lot of threads comparing the software features (playlists, customization, third party software) between the two, along with hardware comparisons (display, dash install depth, expandability, shock resistance)
5) There have been a number of threads from people who have had both units

It is a fair price. I do not think they originally sold for very much more than that, though. If I remember correctly, the original first sold at around $350.

Just some, admittedly biased, thoughts.

My first car mp3 player was a Neo. I had it for about one month. Nevermind that I did a complete car install for it, it was out of there in less than a month. Then I bought an Empeg and found it did everything I found lacking in the Neo. I've never looked back since.

after having a play with an m-station i might be tempted at £18

I had one of those about 3 years ago. For as much pain as it was, they'd have to pay me to put another one in my car.

Okay, you guys convinced me and I ended up buying one of these units...

Now what? I'm a RioCar and MP3 rookie.... but I am reading the FAQ all over again too while I post my first questions to this forum.

Thanks.

Greetings!

Your first step, while waiting for the unit to arrive, is to go through your MP3 files. Clean them up to the best of your ability. Check all tags. Make sure everything is clean and good. Decide what kind of listening / playlist structure you would like to start with. These are things you can do now, and will save you a lot of time and trouble later.

Here's the excellent rundown that Bruno (Hybrid8) made.

Thanks for the welcome Paul and Dignan.

I have no MP3 files but lots of CDs, so I'll be starting from scratch to build my MP3 download.

I'll take a look at Bruno's rundown, thanks for the link.

I have no MP3 files but lots of CDs, so I'll be starting from scratch to build my MP3 download.


If there's any one lament that person after person on this bbs (including myself!) has made, it was that they didn't spend enough time and effort on tagging the music.

It is SOOOO tempting to just run those CDs through the ripper as fast as possible so you can get them loaded into the player... and you will be sorry if you do.

It takes a lot of time to tag things properly -- getting everything spelled correctly, making sure the tag information is complete and correct, setting up and maintaining a rational directory structure on your PC for the music. I spent more time on my tagging than I did ripping, encoding, and uploading the music to the player, because I only did it right the SECOND time around. Had I done it properly the first time, I would have saved myself hundreds (yes, hundreds) of hours. Instead, I had to re-do it all because my tags were such a mess.

Try to keep the mindset that you aren't going to listen to all of your music at once, so there is no need to try and get it all in the player at once. Take your time, maybe half a dozen (or less!) CDs a night, and be completely anal and nit-picky about how you do it. In the long run, you'll be glad you did.

tanstaafl.

I kind of take the slash and burn approach... rip a whole cd named 1.mp3 - xx.mp3 then when I'm done ripping, open up Tag & Rename and get all the information at once (including cover art) from allmusic.com As long as they're in the correct order, and the CDs match up, it pretty much does everything for you.

Seeing as no one else mentioned this... The Neo linked in the first message is way (WAY!) over-priced. It's definitely one of the original Traxdata mStation units.

If it has a stock 3.5" drive in it (which Neo units use as standard), then I'm simply amazed and stumped as to where on earth someone found multiple new 10GB drives.

The newer units are generally better built, include the ability to use an open firmware, come with more accessories, include a better car dock and always ship with a much bigger hard drive. The 3-way comparison page on my site hasn't been updated in a while so there are definitely some discrepancies now. The Phatbox details have changed a little over the past while as well, but in general, you still get a really good feel for what each player is all about.

Bruno