I've browsed and searched, but couldn't find too much on the tuner user interface and functions.

So far, I've found out that the tuner can tune in to the FM, AM and LW bands and that it can display RDS information.

Could someone summarize what the tuner functions are and how they are controlled? Eg. are there station presets? Station seek?

Georg

Actually, it only does FM/AM (AM=MW for the purposes of this discussion).

It does not do LW.

There are 30 station presets and both seek & manual tune mode. Presets are in 3 banks and can be named. RDS does station name, clock-time, and radiotext. Future software releases will add AF and TA support.

Hugo

Wow, impressive.

RDS does station name, clock-time, and radiotext.

And what info of that does the empeg display in combination with the tuner?

Future software releases will add AF and TA support.

What's that?

Georg

It displays all the info, ie station name, clock-time (if transmitted by your station, not all do) and scrolls the radiotext along the bottom (it's max 64 chars).

AF support auto-retunes to stronger versions of the same station you're listening to as you drive around. Useful in europe where the whole country may be served by one station but on about 20 different frequencies. The tuner software (silently) monitors all the other frequencies in the AF list and will retune to a stronger alternative if available and the current one starts to sound bad.

TA is traffic announce. When listening to another radio station or MP3 (or AUX) the tuner monitors the EON TA flag and will retune to a local radio station when it transmits a traffic announcement - and tune back (or unpause the mp3) when the TA announcement is over. Strange that most commercial radio manages to keep the TA flag transmitted after the traffic report - just long enough for them to capture a bigger audience for their commercials, strangely enough... :)

Hugo

Will thiese AF and TA features become available on MK1 too in future software releases or do they need better hardware (MK2 tuner module)???

Veiko
veiko@lc.ee

MK1 #317 - 20GB green

They will become available; however, the retuning on the mk1 is significantly slower and so not silent as it is on the mk2 - there will be a noticable break in the audio (like older RDS radios). The mk2 tuner retunes very quickly - the audio is broken, but it's hard to tell.

Hugo

Whoa!

It displays all the info, ie station name, clock-time (if transmitted by your station, not all do) and scrolls the radiotext along the bottom (it's max 64 chars).

My current radio, er.. head unit, does that too.

AF support auto-retunes to stronger versions of the same station you're listening to as you drive around. Useful in europe where the whole country may be served by one station but on about 20 different frequencies..

Ah, yes, I know that one too. My head unit has that too.

TA is traffic announce..

Ok, have that too.

You guys thought of everything, didn't you? That means this tuner could replace my head unit (except for tape playing) in a heartbeat.

If the Rio/empeg only wasn't so prohibitively expensive. I mean, I have a wife and two kids, could spend a family vacation on the amount of money the base model alone costs. Isn't there maybe a family reduction on the player?

I have to go think of something else...

Georg

If the Rio/empeg only wasn't so prohibitively expensive.

Sure, the price is steep.

But there's currently no other product that lets you take your whole CD collection with you, and does it as well as the Empeg Car does.

For some people, it's not worth it for that much money. For me, it was easily worth it. It's all depends on you: How important is music listening to you?

It's hard to convince you how good the product is when you haven't had a chance to try it. But let me just say that, regardless of price, I now know that I can't live without this thing in my car. I have no idea how I tolerated the only-six-CDs-at-a-time routine for so long.

It's a whole change of attitude about your music collection. Here's a post I made on that subject. Whether or not the Empeg Car is right for you depends on whether or not you're sick and tired of sifting through CDs. If you don't mind carrying a stack of CDs with you, then you're right, it's probably too expensive.

___________
Tony Fabris