I'm on the phone with customer service right now. I had the same thing happen to me that a lot of you have - ordered on the 28th, charged showed up on my credit card, 1-2 days later the charge disappears, order still hasn't shipped, panic ensues.

According to customer support that initial "Charge" was just a hold of funds, and since the order didn't go through in a certain ammount of time, it was dropped.

However, they also informed me that the warehouse is now completely bare - if your order hasn't shipped, it's not going to ship period. They said that the database wasn't updated in real time, and that's what allowed a lot of orders to go through that shouldn't have.

They said that because of this, that order would sit in my queue as "Pending Shipment" indefinitely, waiting for some magical stocking fairy to drop more Empeg players in the warehouse and ship my order out. The only way to get rid of it is to cancel your order.

Well, what a great end to a sad story. I've wanted an Empeg player since the Mark I, and when they announced the price drop on the 24th I scrambled hand and foot to get the money together to be able to finally own one. Then when I think I finally have one, I get kicked in the arse by SB's archaic inventory system. :(

At least now I can officially mourn (instead of thinking I wasn't going to end up getting one but secretly hoping it would work out). Just thought this info. might be of use of some of the others of you out there getting stress headaches :)

Just for grins, anyone out there that has a spare model and wouldn't mind selling it (I'm willing to be flexible on the price at this point), please contact me at mhemby@ensemblestudios.com . You would really be appreciated.

Here's wishing I didn't sell my Christmas presents to be able to afford that Empeg player I've always wanted...

-Matthew Hemby

I don't see how the warehouse could be bare if they aren't shipping until the 3rd. They made a huge mistake doing such a price drop when they know everyone would be on vacation. I too will pay top dollar for an empeg. skyhigh@rldb.net. *sigh*

So how would we find out if our order has already shipped? Did any order placed after christmas ship?

Immensely bummed out,

Skeeter

You can check the status of your order at store.sonicblue.com, just click on Customer Service (hah).

Mine says it's ready to ship. *sigh*

i got order status: pending shipping
next to the riocar it says "shippable"

Yep. That's what mine has said all along, too.

I just thought of something interesting... These people selling them on ebay may not have received them yet. They could be in the same situation as us.

Wah! That really is not good... Oh well, back to the Neo, I guess...

Mine shows 'shippable' also. Are we sure this means no unit will be shipped? I called support and they gave me another number (800) 468-5846. They told me that they didn't answer questions (even shipping questions) for legacy products, and to call 800 661-4411. That was a recording for tech support only, so I'm not sure what's up.

But it isn't looking good, is it? :(

Skeeter

I just also got an email from the CSR I spoke to earlier today saying that if my order does not ship by the end of the week it wont ship at all.. so basically for all of us that didn't get in on the price drop early.. we are S.O.L now..

Oh well.. at least now I won't keep stressing out anymore about whether I am going to get one or not.. *sigh* time to go look for another headunit to replace my stolen one

If SB did mess this up as badly as we are fearing, they are going to have a lot of unhappy customers on their hands. I got an email that says "Use this as your proof of purchase". How can I have a proof of purchase when there is nothing to purchase. Ah well. Let this be the conclusion of my bitching :P

I daresay the driving force behind the price reduction was December 31st - getting the sales into Q4. For what it's worth, even some of our own programmers have been unable to buy players because they were all sold to customers during the Christmas holiday.

I'm disappointed that we were unable to give some notice to genuine customers, but then, the players have been available at a good price for a long time. It makes me quite sad that it took a $199 stock dump to raise significant interest. The decision to EOL the product would seem to be quite correct.

Rob

I had been planning to buy one for years. I have just been waiting until I got a car. The low prices and running out of stock forced me to purchase before I had a car. I was prepared to pay the normal price.

I too had been planning on getting one.
I was actually in the original queue back when they were still empeg's. (#15096 in June of 2000)
My co-worker got one of the first Mark II's, and I was greatly impressed. Just couldnt justify the cost.
But when they dropped to the cost of a Nomad Jukebox or an Archos, who could resist?
Got my 20GB on Monday. :-))

Zachary Volpicelli
Lost In Boston

yes it is sad.

if you wanted one you could have bought it a long time ago.

this reminds me of the freebaters (free + rebate) that would come to compusa when I worked there several years ago they would only come to the store to get the free after rebate stuff and would raise the biggest stink if the store was out of the free after rebate cd cases of some other garbage they wanted

Could be worse Matthew..

I'll sell you one of the units I purchased on the 23rd... if it ever arrvies. I got the notification of shipment supposedly by fedex on the 27th.. and nothing. They did charge my card though.. not an authorization either.
I got a tracking number on the 27th that still shows as not being in the system. I was totally unable to get through to customer support today. :(

fwiw: I work at the same place as Matthew H.

I have my fingers and toes crossed on both arms and legs. I ordered a 20GB unit on the 27th and it still says 'pending shipment' for a status. I called twice today and both times I was told that I would get a unit for sure. I even upgraded the shipping to next-day, hoping beyond hope for this order to go through.

I would have ordered earlier if I had known that the prices had dropped some. I can only say that to those who are lucky to get one, good for you guys! I have had my eyes on one of these babies for a long time, so I hope it works out. Anyway, if anyone has an extra unit they purchased and is willing to sell it for a reasonable price, I would be very interested. I understand that no one wants to part with one of theses players, but any size unit at this point would do, if mine does not go through.

Wish me luck...I think I need it.

eddie

I just snagged one off ebay just in case.

I disagree. My financial status in these recent years has been so disastrous I've never been able to get my empeg, and also my country's custom office would have taxed it as steep as 80% tax so it was never a reasonable price for me.
Add to that my house's debt and my car's one and the fact that I'm single and living in an underdeveloped country and you will understand why peolple as me have never been able to get an Empeg, although I have been an empeg fan since the time it was just a board and a display, in the "black site" times.

Well, I ordered my 20 Gig Empeg spare on the 26th and just got an email about an hour ago with my Fedex tracking number. Can't track it just yet. Doesn't look like it's in Fedex's system now. I'll try again tomorrow morning.

Has anyone else gotten the
'Have Products Shipping Pending'
result for order status?

I ordered on the 27th if it matters.

Yea, I saw it there for like 10 mins about 4 hours ago. It just went back to the normal message. Dunno.

Mine showed the status of "'Have Products Shipping Pending" from a bit after I ordered on the 26th up until 4 hours ago when it shipped.

Interestingly, the SB internal stock database still shows quite a lot of available car players in the US. Don't give up just yet.

For those who ordered from the empeg store but who missed out on stock, it looks like we may have come up with enough players to satisfy all of the orders that were placed (not necessarily with the capacity requested though). David will be emailing those affected today.

Rob

Rob does that mean ordering *right now* from the e-store could yield another player? Or should we not even waste our time?

To everyone waiting to hear about a 10gb unit. If your offered a 20 or 30 gb unit I suggest you take it. It's still a better deal than those selling on ebay!!

Rob,
When you say the empeg store is that the SonicBlue site? I ordered a 30 Gig unit on the 28th. Is there any hope? I don't see any charge to my CC but I'm hanging on to a thin thread. I appreciate your help.

Joe

Yeah....that post just made me a journeyman.

Do you know who it was you spoke to?

Rob

I doubt ordering now would achieve much, but who knows.

Rob

I imagine SB is deluged with calls, but it would be really
helpful if there was a definative number that I should
call to see if there is any status besides
'Have Product pending shipping'

Just a note - I doubt 12/31 had anything to do with the rush. They can't recognize the revenue until they actually ship the product. Most of the shipments appear to be happening AFTER 12/31.

My guess is that someone decided VERY late that xmas would be a good time to do the inevitable - dump the rest of the stock and cut operational overhead asap (i.e. let the customer service team go)

I think someone posted in another thread that the inventory is updated manaually and that they were out of players. Not sure who that person talked to though. I have no idea how DR stays in business with their very poor inventory control and fulfillment services.

Sean

The car player customer service team is David, and he isn't going anywhere.

Rob

Sorry, by "customer service" I didn't mean to imply customer support. I mean the guys who take and ship orders. No, if nothing else, this board proved to me long ago that the empeg team will stand by the product!

Ah, well the car player accounts for a very small fraction of the products that the US customer service and fulfilment people handle.

Rob

Rob, a small question regarding the international store. I thought that on jan 2nd all the orders were going to ship out? It's already jan 3rd and I stil didn't get any sort of email confirmation?
Or have the big amount of orders swamped you guys and is it going to take some more days?

Thanks!

We STARTED shipping then. Please consider that we sold every piece of stock in just a week, and have only one part time dispatcher in the UK. We hope to have shipped all of the orders by the end of Friday.

Rob

By "we" do you mean your UK office, or the eStore's US warehouse?

He means the UK store.

Ok, thought as much, no problem...

Thanks!

He meant the UK office. The us estore warehouse shipped well ahead of the time i thought they would, and I recieved mine 2 days ago.

The International store.

I don't know anything about the eStore, except they have a lot more people and have already shipped a lot of players.

Rob

I don't know if anybody can realistically answer this, but I had a question:

I placed my order right when the 10gigs started showing "out of stock". I ordered a 20gig which showed "in stock", and a 10gig. I am now worried that if the 20gig has a chance of going through, such chance might be nixed by the fact that my order has an unshippable item in it. I am having a problem getting in touch with anyone to clairify my order. Is anyone in the know as to if this might be a problem?

I ordered on the 26th and I have a Fedex tracking number. Package is on the move so there is hope. Keep on them. Send them an email. Call them. I didn't get a confirmation till I emailed them.

Sounds like someone paid the old price for their empeg

seriously, Msaeger, we all want one of the bad-ass players, and most of us have for years... Just an issue of whether or not we could afford it. Needless to say, we all hoped to be set up nicely at an amazing price when the opportunity came up, and we'll be crushed if it doesn't happen! Don't kick a man when he's down.

Hopefully we'll all be part of the same community, and maybe someone who gets one at a discount will help YOU out some day.

Now go enjoy some music,

Skeeter

Who exactly did you e-mail? The customersupport@sonicblue.com route seems to be completely pointless.

skeeter: Sounds like someone paid the old price for their empeg

In return, have a tiny bit of sympathy for us old farts! I'm one of the folks that made the leap and bought a "backup" 10GB in early November (outside the 30-day price guarantee) knowing full well that the day would come when some remaining stock would be liquidated in some fashion -- but we didn't know when or how. I said (here on the BBS) that I was doing it with my eyes open and that I shouldn't complain when liquidation day came (I'll try not to!). You pays yer money and you takes yer chances.

It *is* amazing that a lot of folks who have been missing the Empeg experience will get to now for as little as $200. Really amazing. It is nonetheless a bittersweet moment. I completely understand Rob's comments about sadness and about EOL decision being correct. Witness the upsurge in interest upon liquidation, but a product never valued sufficiently (in cold cash terms, even allowing for SonicBLUE ineptitude) to keep it alive. Yes, if I were one of the Empeg folks from Cambridge, I think I'd be sad.

Thankfully, they really are a software company and I expect that both they and we will continue to prosper by their efforts.

In the meantime, if anyone waited until this moment to try to get an Empeg -- but doesn't succeed -- I don't know what to say. You pays yer money and you takes yer chances.

I can hardly believe it myself, but in a prescient moment yesterday AM, I ordered *another* out-of-stock Empeg (a 60 GB) and a tuner. More than anything else, it was almost just a test -- a mad scientist experiment -- of just how wierd the Digital River experience could get. I can't believe I might actually get them!

If I do get the 60GB and tuner, I will likely sell a tuner -- for exactly what I paid for it -- along with the November 10GB Empeg, either through this BBS or eBay. I'm guessing I will try to sell the unused November Empeg for about $150 *less* than I paid for it. When and if I do this, I hope I don't get flamed to death for speculating.

Hmm I'll still be optomistic. I tried ordering a 10 gig several days ago. Thinking of going for a 20 gig, says they are in stock.

I feel the pain of those that didn't get an empeg... I have a 10 gig I got last June and it rocks. Upgraded to 20 gig. I bought it for $1300 originally, but a few weeks after I got it, they dropped it to $1000. I called up SB and they gave me a $300 credit - I was happy enough about that. If I get my extra, I plan on keeping it, its such an awesome product that one isn't enough for some reason. But in retrospect, because it does kick so much ass... I'd probably let it go to someone that doesn't have one at all. It was painful enough for me to wait all these years for one - I have eyed this thing since Mark I days.

I wish luck to all who have orders "pending shipment".

BleachLPB
___________________

I completely understand Rob's comments about sadness and about EOL decision being correct. Witness the upsurge in interest upon liquidation, but a product never valued sufficiently (in cold cash terms, even allowing for SonicBLUE ineptitude) to keep it alive. Yes, if I were one of the Empeg folks from Cambridge, I think I'd be sad.

Yeah, it really makes you think, doesn't it?

Although I have to say that my take on it is as follows...

There have always been two groups of people, those who "get it", and those who don't. We all know it's a fantastic product, but it can only be sold to people who understand how great it is. Some people just don't see an advantage beyond the CD changer they've already got in their car. This latter group we don't need to worry about, because they would never buy this player, at any price.

Out of those who "get" it, there was a number of people for whom price was no object. I was one of them. My only problem was that I discovered the existence of the player when there was still a queue, and I ended up getting my Mark1 second-hand because there were no new ones available. I considered it an absolute STEAL for the price. I seem to recall I payed Doug316 about $1000 or $1100 for it. I think it even had a 4gb drive...

Then there are the people who "get" it, but for whom price was an important factor. My friend Tod is one of those people. He couldn't see paying over a grand for a car stereo, and I respect that. When the price came down in October, he was teetering on the fence-- it was still a steep price, even to someone who "gets" it. The December price drop shoved him rather hard over that fence.

Now, if you apply a Carl Sagan-style calculation to this whole concept, you've got the following variables:

1) Number of people who actually know about the existence of the empeg.
2) Number of people who would tend to "get it" if they knew about the empeg.
3) The price people who "get it" will pay for an empeg.
4) Price of the empeg (when being sold for its correct profit-making non-liquidation price).

The end result of this calculation is how many players end up getting sold for a profit (before they decided to liquidate the stock at a loss).

The way I see it, all of these, except number 1, are fixed values which can't be changed by empeg or Sonic|blue. The only way to get the final result to go up, is to increase the value of item number 1. This takes marketing.

I wonder if all of the people in the #1 group got the message during the product lifespan? Somehow I think not.

Hey Bleach, You low ping bastard of Lan Party Baltimore, how are things? I'm still wating for mine.. sitting here hitting re-load over and over on the order status screen... I have orders ont he 27th (10g) and 28th (20g) no shipments yet...

You also have to consider that for a lot of poor people like me, the cost is more than just the Empeg.

For example, not only do I have to pay for the Empeg, but overhaul the sound system in my '98 Volkswagon Cabrio to get it to even work. With my factory setup (one DIN unit in dash with internal amp, driving small speakers, with a changer in the back) I was forced to do the following:

1) Buy an amplifier (not cheap). In fact, I'm kind of cutting my throat because unless I buy an uber-expensive amp that I can tune WAY down, the voltage that is going to be sent through to my crappy factory speakers will slowly kill them. I'll have to replace them down the road, and that's further expense.
2) Pay for installation. I could probably be able to get away with just installing the Empeg into my car, but there's no way in hell I'd be able to know the first thing about installing an amp into a car that's never had one.

Add all this together, and even at the most MODEST pricing (with the amp on sale and a cut on the labor) I end up spending a little over $500US just to get my $300 Empeg player running. While the Empeg is a steal, I'm still going to have to wait a month or more to install it if I get it.

Until then it's just going to be the World's Coolest Desk Stereo.

I think with the hardcore geek demographic that loves this stuff, you have two catagories

1) those who are loaded and will buy anything
2) those who are hard-core, young, and broke.

I fall into the second catagory.

I spend my weekend doing case-mod art on my PC, and tricking it out with home-built water cooling systems with cheap AMD processors. It's a hardcore hobby that's not very expensive.

I've always wanted an Empeg, but that price barrier was something that I could never get past.

Just my two cents.

LOL! I too fall into that 2nd category. I always dreamed of a hard disk MP3 player for the car and never knew it existed until I saw a post on the Anandtech Hot Deals forum. I didn't really have the funds for the 10GB I just bought (credit card), but I couldn't pass up the price. Now the search is on for a cheap but good amp and tuner. Until then, looks like its gonna be played as a living room jukebox.

You also have to consider that for a lot of poor people like me, the cost is more than just the Empeg.

Okay, right, that's a given. But for the purposes of my calculation, amplifier cost is also a fixed variable that can't be changed.

In fact, I'm kind of cutting my throat because unless I buy an uber-expensive amp that I can tune WAY down, the voltage that is going to be sent through to my crappy factory speakers will slowly kill them. I'll have to replace them down the road, and that's further expense.

That's not the way amplifiers work. A more powerful amplifier actually increases the life of your speakers as long as you don't turn up the gains too loud.

See, a cheap low-power amp will clip the signal when you turn up the volume. This is what is bad for the speakers. A more powerful amplifier gives you more headroom so that you can send a cleaner signal to the speakers without clipping.

And amps don't have to be expensive to be gain-tunable. In fact, nowadays you're hard-pressed to find any amplifier that doesn't have crossovers and gain adjustments built-in.

Pay for installation. I could probably be able to get away with just installing the Empeg into my car, but there's no way in hell I'd be able to know the first thing about installing an amp into a car that's never had one.

Okay, installation is an issue for those who aren't comfortable with it, agreed. Again, that's a fixed cost factor which can't be changed by Sonic|blue.

If it's any consolation, I've installed amps in a few different cars. And while it's a lot of work, it's nothing that's particularly mind-bending. The only difficult part is getting the proper panels and bits of carpet lifted so that you can run the wires. And that's going to be different for every car, so even most stereo installation shops are flying by the seat of their pants to do those. You can get all the necessary wiring and connections in a kit from Crutchfield, along with a worth-its-weight-in-gold master sheet that shows you how to dismantle your dashboard.

Did the 1st price drop come after the EOL announcement? I think that if so, the price may have been low enough, but people were perhaps concerned they were buying something that was no longer being made.

I just don't get how people will spend $300 for a CD player. There have been no significant advances in CD players (except they skip less) in 10 years. The prices companies are charging is nuts. The displays stink too.

I always said that the empeg seemed expensive until you looked at how much a CD player option was on a new car...

Paid $1299 and proud of it.

Not that this really means anything, but I just wanted to check in with my update - I called SonicBlue CS today to attempt to cancel part of my order (I didn't know a remote came with the unit) and the man I talked to said that they were doing everything in their power to make sure all orders placed before the 1st are filled. He seemed to feel that my order (placed on the 30th) would certianly be filled in full, even though some of the items had shown "out of stock" at the time of order. For reference, I ordered 1 10 gig, 1 20 gig, a remote, a tuner, and the color kit.

The first price cut came after EOL announcement. I also think that some people didn't want to buy discontinued product for $700, but for $200 they say 'what the heck, for that price it doesn't have to last forever!'.

A comment on one of Tony's posts: I am angry at S|B because I think they could have increased your #1 category (people who heard of empeg) tenfold. Moreover, I think that good marketing can somewhat increase proportion of people who 'get it'.

I see here phrase 'could not justify the price before' often. Now, English is not my native language so I perhaps don't undertand correctly, but I could always justify the price of empeg (meaning I agreed it was worth the price), it's just that when my number came I could not justify expense (i.e. I simply did not have the money for non-essential items at the moment). Few months later the situation improved (though believing I would not miss that money was still a matter of blind faith ), but I thought I would wait for larger-drive model (30GB units were on horizont). Tony changed my mind with one well-worded post , otherwise I would have waited another several months.

Then, there is a question of priority: baby food comes higher than empeg. Do a car, an occasional meal in a good restaurant, books, vacation, alloy wheels, digital camera? For me, certainly car and books, perhaps the first four items (I didn't end up having to make that choice, luckily). For Laura her drag racer, for someone else all of them, or none...

Anyway, I paid more than $2000 for 18GB empeg with taxes (and tuner when it bacame available) and don't regret it. I am (already somewhat nervously) awaiting a 60GB one which I bought as both backup and disk upgrade. I am rationalizing that I was going to spend almost that much for disks, anyway. I will probably just lend the old one to a friend (untill I need a spare part from it )

I am glad for all new owners (including those who will get unexpected presents from their empeg-loving spouses/lovers/children/friends). I am not at least bitter about having paid ten times more than someone who perhaps bougth it now because it was cheaper than Neo. They will 'get it', and I enjoyed my empeg a year and a half longer

tfabris: Now, if you apply a Carl Sagan-style calculation to this whole concept, you've got the following variables:

Tony,

I like your analysis overall (Carl S. - #2 or 3 on my heroes list). I probably let SB off too easy when it comes to the "number of people who know this thing exists or what it does" department. I suppose one tweak I would make to the formula is a factor for volume + margin -- you only have to make a dime on each one if you sell a trillion!

It also would have been interesting to see what the depletion of stock would have been like if the price drop had been gradual, say $50 per week, but that's not really an efficient way to liquidate and I don't expect SB to conduct such an experiment for my benefit.

you only have to make a dime on each one if you sell a trillion!

But when you lose money on every transaction, it's hard to make up for it with volume!

tanstaafl.

tanstaafl: But when you lose money on every transaction, it's hard to make up for it with volume!

Absolutely. When we get a hold of Carl and have him modify the formula, I'm sure he can make sure that it accounts for the recent Black Hole in reverse Empeg liquidation profitability! Plus, it's be a perfect opportunity for him to chant "Billions and Billions" from the afterworld (if only he believed in it!)

Tony changed my mind with one well-worded post



Which post was that?

Which thread was that
[which changed my mind into not postponing ordering empeg again]

Here is the relevant thread (and here Tony's post in it beginning with 'Order the Empeg now, you silly person' that changed my mind ). Additionally, there was a private message which I think I may post now without Tony minding terribly:

I didn't post this publicly to the BBS, and I don't want to promote this behavior as it would be bad for Empeg's margins, but since you're considering not buying an Empeg at all because of this, I think I should tell you this option:

You could get the cheapest model (6gb), rip out the little drive, and put in two 25gb travelstars of your own. If you do this before you begin uploading tunes, then you haven't lost any work and don't need to do any re-uploading.

Here's the real benefit of doing it that way, though: The actual purchase price of a (6gb Empeg)+(Two 25gb travelstars you buy yourself) is actually almost exactly the same price as buying the 36gb Empeg.

I already discussed this with Rob, and the reason is:

a) Their margin on the Empegs is the same percentage whether or not it's a little one or a big one. Therefore, the bigger ones have a bigger margin (in terms of cash, not in terms of percentage).

b) They couldn't source the 25-gig Travelstars in quantity and had to settle for the 18gb drives. You, on the other hand, should be able to get a couple travelstars if you try.

They will be discontinuing the 2x18gb=36gb model in favor of a bigger one anyway. The only question is how soon will that happen?

Well, I bought largest single-drive model (18GB at the time) and kept postponing upgrade mostly owing to lack of confidence in my screwdriver-wielding skills. Now I ended up upgrading by buying 60GB empeg for a song. Picture-perfect Hollywood happy-end (except that there won't be any more opportunity to upgade by buying a 120GB empeg and passing the current one along to a friend... ).