If I were buying my dad a player for his car what would it be? Seems theres yet to be anything that even comes close to the empeg. 2 years back we said "in 2 years something will be released" and it hasn't yet. Why do Sony and Pioneer waste their time releasing over-priced low spec crap? You'd think they'd have the budget to just take a risk.

Seems my options are a 2nd hand empeg (which I don't want as I'll need to run cables and fit an amp) or a cheapo Dension which are now discontinued.

Just waiting for Apple's carPod to be released...

These days, the only decent solution is a regular car stereo with an iPod dock.

I'm with Tony. If you want to get fancy, you can get the Alpine head unit that knows how to speak digitally to an iPod.

If only there were a really nice deck to interface the ipod with. Something with a flip-down and removable face. 1DIN with a flush-capable face plate and edge to edge OLED. Behind the face plate: a CD slot up top and below it a rectangular openning to insert media adapters. Then (at a minimum) they'd make one adapter for iPod (with additional internal adapters to fit the different models) and an adapter to fit a variety of USB external drives - it would have a wire coming out the front for the USB connection (a 90 degree plug) - the pocket should be deep enough so that you can connect the plug and insert the drive enclosure with the plug end facing outward.

The unit would provide its own decoding as well as allow the plugged in device to do the decoding (in the case of the iPod). It should also have a USB plug either on the face or behind it and a few media card slots. Must be completely upgradeabe firmware to allow upgrades to the player software/interface and to add support for additional portable players.

Now who's going to make it? Even if exclusively to support the iPod....

Bruno

I just saw one in the Crutchfield catalog with USB 2.0 Host, so you could plug in memory card readers, portable hard disks, etc., and it would play any MP3s and AACs it found.

No thanks, I'll keep my Empeg!

I'd say better to swallow a regular iPod. If you want it to swallow a nano or shuffle, you can use an adapter. Form factor dictates it -- you can't make a bigger ipod go in a smaller hole, but you can make a smaller ipod go in a bigger hole. No need to lose most of your potential customers because they got the larger product.