Empeg Rio Car MP3 10gig HD-based Head Unit -$199 UPDATE: Out Of Stock

[Daleon]

Its a decent little system but not exactly what I've been waiting for. I have to have one of the following to have my dream car stereo setup.

1. 6 disc in dash cd player/am fm reciever that reads CDR, CDRW, and plays MP3's with a nice digital or LCD display.
2. 10 disc cd changer that can read CDR, CDRW, and play MP3's. Found some that read CD/CDRW but none that can play MP3's yet.
3. A system like this that basically has hot swappable laptop hard drives.

Once I have any one of the following my setup will be complete. Phx Gold Amp, 3 Punch 10's, and 4 50w Cerwin Vega's already pounding, I just need the perfect unit to put my music on.

Also love the idea about the 802.11b built in. I had thought of building a pc unit to cover all my needs and that may be what I end up doing if no one comes to market soon with one of my top 3 choices. I just don't want to hassle with the power/sound setup that a computer would need.

 

[bpb30]

BTW, when I ordered the am/fm tuner was already out of stock. I ordered one anyways just in case they come back into stock. Somebody already put some of the 10GB units on ebay with a ship date after Jan 7. I have a feeling that is why their system is saying out of stock on the 10GB units. What is interesting to note is that the 60GB unit has 2 x 30GB notebook drives in it. Those alone are worth the price of the unit.

Can any of you car hi-fi guys recommend a reasonably priced amp to go along with these car stereos?

 

[curlykicker]

Damn you AT Hot Deals! I just blew $318 on the 20GB model.

I've always wondered why they never came out with a harddisk based music player for the car. And then last night I saw this thread. ARGH! I can't afford this but it's such an awesome system! Fully upgradable, big time support through the Empeg community, and there is ongoing software development. In fact there are people developing software right now so that it can have Voice Recognition. You can also design your own start up graphics and logos, search by genre, title, name, and even date. And if your listening to a particular artist while it's set to random, genre, or year, and you're thinking "hmm I like him, lemme hear some more by him" you can hit a button so that it plays more by that artist. Cool. All of the 20-band parametric equalizer options are awesome. It has USB, Serial, and Ethernet ports to upload your MP3s with. It has an IR link and can have Palm Pilot hooked up to it. Oh yeah it also has over 40 animations you can select that are syched with the music. And did I mention that you can take it out and hook it up to your living room stereo and and control it with it's own remote or some other companies remote? Awesome. Who needs a CD player when you can just rip ALL your CDs and upload 'em into your Rio Car Player?

Curly

 

[LilBlinbBlahIce]

Managed to get in on it, really made my day. Thanks for the post.

 

[cjchaps]

No problem. Have a good New Years!



<< Managed to get in on it, really made my day. Thanks for the post. >>

 

[otowned]

Thanks for a great post. I've always wanted to get one of these for my car. I picked up a 20GB unit. I also wanted a tuner, but they were out of stock. If anyone picked up an extra tuner, please let me know.

Happy New Year to all....

otowned

 

[JoshMKiV]

Tuners can't be found right now, but keep checking the link I posted above, the original makers of the Empeg hope to organize another run of tuners (only 1000 ever made it seems).

 

[nikko]

A couple of questions. Those are pretty steep markdowns. Does that mean they are trying to move them because a new and improved model is right around the corner? Or are they just trying to get out of this market? How fast could one transfer a 30 GB music collection to one of these things, I wonder.

Also, is it just me, or is that FM tuner butt ugly? It looks like a cheap piece of crap on the website. Just curious to hear from anyone who has it. Where does it even fit? It doesn't look like the standard size/shape head unit.

 

[randomlinh]

i'm guessing they want to dump them... no one wanted these things cause they were way overpriced... so now to get rid of them, cut the cost.

 

[JoshMKiV]

Check out the empeg.comms.net BB for more info...

However

1) The tuner is pretty advanced, these guys know what they are doing. It is hidden away, so you shouldn't care about the looks.

2) Rio bought the entire Empeg company, and to them, the car Empeg is not what they want to sell. What they got in the purchase has allowed them to build products they think will sell, like the new home station product.

The car empeg is done for now, but support will be amazing, as the group of geeks following this thing are to be feared. I have no problem owning these and not worrying about support.

No matter, they are all sold. If anyone bought one and has changed their mind, I will be happy to purchase your unit.

 

[Mister Beefhead]

Don't count on actually getting on of these. Posted on the RioCar forum:

called sonicblue customer service on wednesday to ask this very question. here's what i found out: the estore site is operated by digital river. they do not have a link into the sonicblue inventory system, so any updates regarding what's "in stock" or "out of stock" must be done by hand.

they've gotten a flood of orders over the past week, and the warehouse has been closed for inventory, so sonicblue can't even give an accurate determination about whether your order will be able to be filled or not. until they actually match boxes up with orders (which has begun, it sounds like), you can't be certain one way or another.

i did ask if they would contact me if they ran out of my preferred size, and give me the opportunity to change to a different model. they customer service rep didn't know for sure, but he was not encouraging on that point. i placed a second order for another size to be on the safe side, and i'm confident i can recoup my investment if i end up with more units than i really want.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed, but I'm not counting on mine ever coming. I guess I'll give customer service a call when they reopen on Wednesday.

 

[otowned]

fingers crossed also...

otowned

 

[nikko]

Isn't somebody else then liable to tap into this market? It seems obvious to me that it's the wave of the future. If I was Kenwood or Sony I would definitely be developing something like this. What could prompt someone more quickly to replace their car stereo more than knowing they could put their entire collection in their car. And if it ever gets stolen, you still have the originals. Am I missing something? Why aren't seeing more of these on the market?

 

[GnatGoSplat]

I don't think it's for everyone.
Not everyone wants a pull-out stereo that you have to hook up to your PC.
Not everyone wants to give up the ability to use portable media, for example, like if your buddy buys a new CD and wants to play it in your car, he's not going to be able to.
Not everyone wants to give up their high-end head unit that they use to compete in IASCA and other car audio events.

I think something like this would really take off, if it were a compact remote-mounted box with an HD and 802.11b that hooks up to the head unit via CD-changer bus. Then any head unit could control it, display song titles, etc. You would not lose your ability to use readily-available media, nor would you lose your AM/FM tuner, ability to use your current CD/MD changers, etc.

Supposedly there's some company that has come up with exactly what I described as someone sent me a link to their site. I signed up for their mailing list but never received any product announcements.

 

[Mister Beefhead]

<< Not everyone wants to give up their high-end head unit that they use to compete in IASCA and other car audio events. >>


This is actually an EXTREMELY high-end unit, that would have no problem keeping up with the best of them. Unfortunately, the IASCA have their heads planted firmly up their butts and do not, as of yet, allow MP3 based players in SQ compititions.



<< Supposedly there's some company that has come up with exactly what I described as someone sent me a link to their site. I signed up for their mailing list but never received any product announcements. >>


There is in fact such a thing. www.phatnoise.com is the site. The problem is that you don't get much for your $800. I'd much rather have the RioCar.

I imagine that things will keep improving...I envision a head unit with all the functionality of the RioCar with the added bonus of a built in cd player and 802.11b. You stick in a cd and press a button and it makes mp3s on the fly. You pull into your garage and it syncs with your designated mp3 directory on your home PC. Someday...

 

[aCiDReflux]

Ok I'm missing something. Can't we just use the rca outputs and hook it up to the line in on my head unit? I mean I want one of these bad. But Im not giving up my Alpine F1 headunit.
BTW headsup riocar.org says soniclbue is completely sold out of all models.

 

[arcas]

A company named (PhatNoise has come out with just such a product. It plugs into the CD changer
bus so your head unit (assuming it's compatible) will treat it just like a CD changer. It's available now.

It's close but IMO it's not the holy grail:

1) At $800 for the smallest (20gig) model, it's expensive
2) It uses a removable hard drive + USB cradle contraption. This feature just kills me. Yet another company that has jumped onto
the portable hard drive bandwagon (yes, they list this as a potential use). Who in their right mind is going to pay $800 for a
portable USB hard drive?

I wonder if they could have shaved $200 off the price had they gone with a standard IDE interface and maybe added an ethernet
port (ethernet chipsets are dirt cheap). Then the owner could plug into an existing 802.11b hub or do straight ethernet or
whatever. I mean the PhatBox runs Linux (as does the Empeg) so support for a TCP/IP stack is already there!

Sooner or later some company is going to "get it right" but PhatNoise misfired IMO.

 

[dtoff]

dam i wish i had money......i ripped all my cds to mp3s cause i bought a aiwa mp3 cd deck, which i like alot. so now i have over 30gigs of mp3s and to be able to have all of them in the car with me at one time................

i'm slowly looking around my room at what i can sell...... being unemployed sucks. lets hope the lager sizes last till i get a job...

one other thing... i have heard that have a hard drive in your car isn't the best thing in the world. anyone know the warrenty on these???

 

[Mister Beefhead]

<< dam i wish i had money......i ripped all my cds to mp3s cause i bought a aiwa mp3 cd deck, which i like alot. so now i have over 30gigs of mp3s and to be able to have all of them in the car with me at one time................

i'm slowly looking around my room at what i can sell...... being unemployed sucks. lets hope the lager sizes last till i get a job...

one other thing... i have heard that have a hard drive in your car isn't the best thing in the world. anyone know the warrenty on these??? >>



I hope you haven't started selling things just yet...this deal is long dead.

 

[dtoff]

no i didn't sell anything yet..............but i should anyway i need the money. dam it i wanted one of these!!!!!

 

[mdinh]

I just got my SonicBlue shipping notification for both a $199 and $299 unit. Yeah! I ordered my $199 unit when it was out of stock too. Now I got to figure out how to return or sell the $299 unit.

 

[smitjere]

md, I'll take it off your hands...I'm not having an luck with my order

 

[nester00]

thanks mang... mine just shipped ordered a 10 gigger on the 29th..


muahahaha

 

[curlykicker]

Yeay! I not only got one but two! I ordered a 10GB but it said it was out of stock so I ordered a 20GB just in case. Well I got both. I guess I gotta try my luck selling the 20GB on Ebay. I had no idea that this thing had so many features on it. I mean come on!?!? Palm Pilot control, beat synced-graphics, I'm able to add a second HD, and I can DL back to a PC? Sheesh, I'm glad I didn't get on that Creative Jukebox deal.

 

[rcldesign]

Shipped and order placed on the 29th??? What the heck? I placed my order on the 27th for a 1 gig. unit, and it still hasn't shipped!! I guess I'm giving them a call tomorrow!:disgust: