You talking to me?

err... yeah.

you only registered here this month. Some of us have been here since may '99, before the Mk1s were released and have covered most angles of development. There is also a small amount of resentment when someone pops up and sprouts how to change everything. If you want answers to most of your suggestions read all the posts. If you map it out chronologically, it's obvious that this thing didnt pop up overnight and many years of programming have been put into it.

Just for a hoot, install version beta 6. It wont work with your current player, probably only the Mk1 but I have it on the original issue CD for you if you like. The one with the label stuck on by hand, before the new empeg office had any furniture. loved that job didn't you Rob?

So when you tell us all how things should be, think about how long the rest of us have been here.

Like I said, its been clear sailing until the price drop lowered the bar

Agreed. I'm not citing any specific examples. But, the good 'ol signal noise ratio has been a'shiftin'.

Come on, chill down, guys (some Café del Mar, perhaps? )! While we did have a few instances of posts annoying for the sake of being annoying and a lot of questions from newbies who ignore advice to RTFF first (and are even irritated by repeated suggestion to really do RTFF), newbies will learn, and 'arsonists' (if there are indeed such people here) will get bored. We will end up will more interesting people to discuss proper ways of eating Oreos with

I've not seen any flare ups on this BBS until a few hot-heads picked up players cheap and couldn't understand why traffic doesn't stop to answer their questions.

There were two or three mild ones: about open source licensing (somebody from the board 'reported' empeg guys to some OSS hot shot - I don't remember who - as being non-compliant; after some bitter words everything ended up by empeg sticking to the word of GPL license, not only spirit, which they always did) and about promised features being late. Nothing serious, really. I don't think what we have now is serious, either.

"There were two or three mild ones: about open source licensing (somebody from the board 'reported' empeg guys to some OSS hot shot - I don't remember who - as being non-compliant; after some bitter words everything ended up by empeg sticking to the word of GPL license, not only spirit, which they always did)"

Yeah, Jesus Christ even stopped by to put in his comments on that one.

Right, those were the days...

Don't mean to be a whiner. It's just tough now that the traffic has increased 5 fold or whatever it is... to have to spend so much more time reading posts just too keep up, and for them only to sound like they are coming from 14 year old hot shot wanting to pick a virtual fight where they would be hiding in a corner in real life. We've all been spoiled by the quality of this BBS... as i've never seen anything anywhere near the level of overall greatness and genuine comradery of it. New users here need to respect the community and treat those who've been here forever as elders (and i'm not talking about myself by any means). I don't wanna be saying "those were the days" quite yet.

Loren, I have seen your photos: you, an elder?!

Seriously, I agree, but, apart from too large volume (which is slacking down recently), don't see many problems.

I was thinking about making a comment on the s/n ratio dropping down closer to /. levels, but refrained myself. I think we all see it anyway.

Haha, i'm definitely NOT an elder =]. My point was, when i started on this board, i did a LOT of lurking just to see how things worked around here before i even registered in Aug. 2000. And when i did post, i did so humbly knowing i was coming into a place where nearly everyone knew more than me about the empeg. Everyone has something to contribute, but the key is doing so respectfully.

You're correct... there haven't been that many problems... it's just that the few small hotheads and know it alls stand out greatly from the rest and seem magnified. Again... i don't intend on making a big deal out of any of it. In fact, i should just obey my own rule of ignoring the annoying, because recognizing, acknowledging, and inciting only prolong the annoyance.

And Tim... if this place ever gets as bad as /. where you have to browse at 2 just to get anything decent... i'll be creating a secret society.

I actually had an ID < 15,000 on /., but haven't used it in a couple of years because it got so bad

anyhoo, back on topic, I think the futrue for the team formerly known as empeg looks pretty good.

Did any of you people actually read my post? Was I really trashing empeg? Was I really complaining? Was I inciting arguments? Or was I just simply bringing up a few ideas I had? So what if I didn't read every letter ever documented on the empeg? What's the BBS for? Just to attack people who don't have an "MKI" and haven't had the chance to read the FAQ 500 times? Tell me one thing I said that was out of line. Give me a quote. I didn't know stating ideas on future empeg applications was so wrong.

I don't want to post here again as I feel that it might sour your experience with empeg. I don't have anything against having dreams and ideas about what it could be used for but my impression from your first post was you were preaching from on high about how things could have been better. Some of those ideas would have been quite at home in the wish list forum. It was felt your were speaking out of ignorance.

The riocar is an amazing unit. Saying it should have had even more features was a bit hurtful.

I was thinking about making a comment on the s/n ratio dropping down closer to /. levels, but refrained myself. I think we all see it anyway.

Slashdot levels? Oh my goodness, no. Things have gone downhill a little, but I haven't seen a single goatse.cx link or ASCII middle finger yet.

I think that as the members of this new (and, sadly, last) crop of newbies become experienced power users, we will see the S/N ratio and the general quality of posts go back to pre-fire-sale levels. These newbies aren't in any way less intelligent than the regulars here, they just haven't figured out that most of what they need to know is out there, and if they ask a question nicely here, it will be answered.

As for the aforementioned newbies who come in with guns-a-blazing attacking various segments of the Empeg community, they will probably be recipients of a few bitchslaps. Either they'll figure out how to state their case in a less confrontational manner, or they'll piss someone off enough to get banned. To my knowledge nobody's ever had to be banned from this BBS, so we're a pretty tolerant lot.

Besides I think there's enough people who care enough about this BBS that it won't ever approach Slashdot lameness. We just need to be patient and help all the new folks out, welcome the vast majority of them who make sense, and tell any idiots among them to go take a hike. Pretty simple, no?

The riocar is an amazing unit. Saying it should have had even more features was a bit hurtful.

I don't think it was hurtful for him to say "I think the product would have been more successful if X", which is essentially what he said. Everyone has a right to express an opinion.

I just think that sometimes people jump onto a BBS or mailing list and post their opinions too quickly before researching a little more. I think he's simply incorrect in his opinion of what X is. Knowing how the product was developed, knowing what it took in terms of manhours and hard-costs to make, I don't think they made any bad choices putting it together. If he'd known the history or spent much time with the unit, he might have had a different opinion.

To answer your questions in order...

Yes.
Nope.
Could be taken that way.
Could be taken that way.
Yeap.
That would be damn near impossible, but reading the entire FAQ isn't that difficult, nor is searching for keywords for topics you are about to post.
A lot of things.
Nope, and it only takes once.
No quotes, you just come off as cocky. Anyone who's argumentative and doesn't even have balls enough to give their real name or info in their profile < generalization > usually doesn't have much to contribute < /generalization >

I've got no beef, my only point is that you should respect this group and not dive in head first. the end.

Actually that one ended up with us demonstrating to Debian that they weren't GPL compliant either

Rob

Agreed, Tony.

People, we will do more to hurt this community by giving an impression of a bunch of grumpy old elitists (and thus turning bona-fide newbies away) than by tolerating (or ignoring, if we are not tolerant enough) posts or posters not entirely to our liking. I won't be calling names, but there were occasions previously when even some of the most valuable contributors here have shown signs of a short fuse for a post or two. So what? It's all among friends, no?

Posts about S/N ratio tend to lower the very ratio they talk about, so I will try to make this one my last one on the topic.

Once more, wellcome all new empeg owners (and do RTFF )!

lol

Ditto - I have probably downloaded 20 songs from bands I had never heard of or new albums and played them on my empeg (along with 2800 from my own CD's) to see how they sound. The ones I dislike get discarded, and the songs I like prompt me to order the CD from somewhere - even when it's tricky: I had to get a friend in Australia to hunt around for an Australian Crawl CD from the late 80's (sounds like INXS but more so)

See T-fab knows what's going on.

"doesn't even have balls enough to give their real name or info in their profile" - loren

Ha, you crack me up.

I think one thing that has been a good feature of the BBS is that with a small community, it's easy to feel that we all know each other, and can throw around lighthearted cracks that sometimes appear to newcomers to be actual flames. Said newcomers try to use the same tone, and are surprised when it's not received well.

It's something that I've seen happen in a few communities (IRL and virtual) when they've expanded; some have done better than others at coping with the influx. It depends on a lot of things, including the rate of growth, the willingness of the newbies to lurk and pick up the vibe, the willingness of the established crowd to welcome and educate the new folks - but not limited to just these things, of course.
In short,

• New members - don't be put off by people's flippant styles, but don't expect to "try it on" before you're well-known
• Old members - don't get too wound up by people who don't know the conventions and etiquette around here; take time to gently point them in the right direction (like real-life police, net.police can be either authoritarian or supportive...)

I downloaded all of my songs!!! HAHAHAHAHA!!!
Metallica eat my shorts!!

j/k I will not lie If I hear a song on the radio or MTV I will go and download it, unless it's already in my extensive collection.
I did go and download all of my favorite songs after my CD collection was stolen out of my car (along with my stereo system.

I must've replaced my NiN collection about 2 or 3 times from being stolen - all legally purchased. I guess its a function of how much you really enjoy the artist and want to support them. A bunch of the CDs I've had to replace were imports, at $25/cd or $50 for a cd set (all bought locally). Since I had the entire collection (up to the 'Closer to God' import), I guess it means I liked them enough to pay for the replacements. *shrug* to each his own I guess.

See T-fab knows what's going on.

I just think that sometimes people jump onto a BBS or mailing list and post their opinions too quickly before researching a little more. -Tony

Yeap, he does know what's going on.

Ha, you crack me up.

What's funny about that? I still don't see your name.

I'll stop so as not to come off as an elitist, but it wouldn't hurt to show a sliver or two of respect for those who've been around way longer and know way more than you, and i still don't speak of myself when i say that.

Truce.

About a year ago I got the Neo rather than the empeg simply because I thought they were essentially the same thing, but the neo was cheaper. boy was I wrong!

I was wrong on all accounts. The Neo completely sucks. It's not even worth the materials it's made of in my opinion. I would have never bought one if I could have compared the 2 in real life. Not only that, but the Neo ended up being *more expensive* than the empeg. The Neo itself was only $400, but I had to put in about $500-$600 more just to get the damned thing installed; not to mention all the time I invested (I made a rough estimate of about 30-40 hours; even at minimum wage that's about $200).

Compare that to my empeg that just worked right out of the box, no fuss, no hidden expenses (well, except perhaps for an $8000 tuner on ebay). The empeg is certainly worth $999 (how much it cost when I was deciding between it and the neo), possibly even $1500.

I think the only thing the empeg guys could have done to get me to buy one back then isn't to add new features, but rather to convince me that it really is worth the price. Most car audio people do that by setting up in-store demos, but I suppose empeg doesn't exactly have the resources to do so. They could have also explained why the neo isn't really worth it, but that's not very nice marketing (and may be illegal, I dunno).

Unfortunately, the advantages of the empeg over the neo can't really be put in to words. It's just something you have to experience.
(yes, I'm very bitter about my neo. I put (almost) all my money into it, and got (almost) nothing out of it. If the prices of the empeg hadn't dropped, I would have never been able to get one. I count my lucky stars for that.)

I think the only thing the empeg guys could have done to get me to buy one back then isn't to add new features, but rather to convince me that it really is worth the price.

Exactly. And how do they do that?

MARKETING. The one thing we all expected to see when the team/product was purchased by Sonic|blue. Something that, as far as I can tell, didn't happen.

That's the point I was trying to make here.

Unfortunately, the advantages of the empeg over the neo can't really be put in to words. It's just something you have to experience.

Great, another unintentional Matrix reference...