Review: 1119/113
Ordered: 6/9/99
Dispatched: 7/9/99
Delivered: 8/8/99
Configuration: 6GB/Blue
After receiving the Empeg I spent a couple of days just staring at it due to
the lack of any software to upload music. Shortly after contacting Empeg
and complaining about the lack of the promised Linux software, I was happily
supplied with some command line software to upload MP3s.
Over the next week I tried various means of uploading MP3s and categorising
them, starting with plain empload, followed by a few variations of an expect
script that uploaded the tracks and then added the tags. After a few days
I managed to get PPP working (thanks to Verement) and had a tcp/ip connection
to the empeg. This made things a lot easier and more flexible. I then decided
to abandon client side categorisation and just bang everything onto the empeg
irrespective of any playlists or tags. This turned out to be a good idea and
quite flexible. I used rsync to transfer the MP3s and then some scripts to
to create the FID lists.
After many more days uploading MP3s over the serial line at 10KB/s, I
more or less filled the disk up. Doing this over serial is extremely
painful.
A week later Cambridge Car Audio installed the empeg in my car as well
as an amp that they recommended to me (Hi Dominic :-) The sound compared
to the previously installed casette player was an order of magnitude better,
even though I haven't touched the speakers yet.
A week later, we (my wife and I) make the first long trip in the car.
Luckily I'd just finished off a perl script to create a hierachical set
of playlists based on the ID3 tags, and I uploaded it to the empeg.
In general:
o - It sounds great!
o - It looks great!
o - It's completely progammable (and it runs linux).
Issues:
o - The empeg doesn't start without the engine on, although you can turn
the engine off after it has booted.
o - It makes a loud bang if you turn the ignition off (as others have commented).
o - The radio doesn't work very well.
o - The display doesn't adjust when you show the track information, i.e.
the visuals are coarsely overwritten.
o - The UI is not sophisticated enough to handle thousands of tracks. It
is difficult, if not dangerous, to search for artists and albums.
o - Continual volume adjustment is annoying. When you choose random
tracks, you have to continually adjust the volume. Certain tracks, such
as many classical ones, have a long lead-in that cannot be heard above
the general noise level of a moving car. When you adjust the volume,
it eventually becomes too loud:
Wish: Minimum and Maximum volume levels as well as the average level
requested.
Although it's too late for me, it would be very useful if there were
a microphone in the empeg capable of measuring the ambient noise level
and adjusting play levels accordingly.
o - Certain albums have tracks that are really made to be played in
order, pink floyd for example. It would be useful to be able to
identify tracks as requiring ordering even though shuffle is on.
o - No graphic equaliser (which should also be associated with each
MP3)
o - You can't go back to the last track you played, or skipped (perhaps by
accident).
o - Random ordering did not seem random at all. I heard the same track
several times, but not a single track from double-album CDs which I
had uploaded.
Wish: The player should log everything it does, including tracks
played, skipped, volume changes, etc., in order to post-process this
information.
o - No linux USB driver yet. Personally, I think the empeg should
be the server for thin clients on win/unix/mac/etc. Perhaps even a
browser interface. Spending all this effort on our windows brothers
at the expense of the rest of us, annoys me somewhat...
Overall: V. Good; most, if not all the problems are to do with software
and can be solved relatively easily. If Empeg would make the system more
developer friendly then I'm sure all the issues could be solved in a
short order.
Potential: Excellent