in dash MP3 player

[reptiles]

Greetings,

Just wanted to share my experience with the empeg in-dash MP3 player. It is a single DIN unit with 1 or 2 shock mounted hard drives, a bright vaccum display, and a slide in/out dash bracket.

Its fits in the 1G DSMs perfectly (probably 2G as well) and hooks up to a remote amp. While it is suppose to have a radio module, I didn't use it, as I also retained a CD/AM/FM head unit in the other opening. I used a Sony switch box to switch between the two.

I originally had some problems with noise, but solved that by experimenting with the ground connections.

You get the MP3 tunes into it by sliding it out, connecting to your USB port and dragging them into it via their software. It runs Linux and can also run other programs if you are so inclined.

I think it is a great product, and highly recommend it for any audio fanatic. They are about $1,000 or so depending on the number of gigs you get with it. It also plays in your home audio system with A/C power pack included. Great for parties, DJs, etc. You can create custom playlists, etc.

For details see their website at http://www.empeg.com and feel free to ask me about any DSM related installation questions you might have.

[turbo2000pa]

For $1,000, thats a bit pricey for me. LOL. Wouldn't be easier to burn MP3's onto a CD and play them? I burned a couple gigs of MP3's and they all sound fine on my deck. Thank you Napster.

[reptiles]

Yes, $1,000 is a lot of cash, but probably not more than $200-300 more than a good CD receiver.

The advantage of the empeg car player is that ALL your MP3s are on the internal harddrives... upto 1,000 whole CDs can be with you at all times.

And you would be playing digital MP3s as they were intended to be replayed, with little loss of fidelity.

When you download MP3s from the net, most people end up converting them to analog audio and re-recording them as wav files to be burned on to CDROMs. This causes a great deal of lost fidelity.

The empeg is all digital. The MP3s are never converted. It can produce a near-CD quality reproduction with the space savings of MP3 compression. A very good compromise, as I couldn't even fit 1,000 CDs in my trunk!

[dmoore]

I have two Empegs (http://www.empeg.com) and I LOVE them. One has 16gb and the other is 10gb. You can pickup the first generation model fairly cheap ($500) now. You can see them on my website at:

http://www.dmoore.com/empeg.htm

[BMPsGSX]

That thing looks pretty cool, although it is a bit on the pricey side. What am I talking about, I'm the sucker that bought the eclipse head unit that is a monitor and a tuner, and then bought the VCR and a Nintendo 64. Oh well maybe its time to add another expensive toy to the car. One quick question, does the tuner on that head unit play US band radio stations?

[dmoore]

Usually when I'm driving I don't have much time for TV and Nintendo 64, so I guess the money that would have gone to something like that was better spent on something I do/can use when driving - a radio/mp3 player.

For the $1000 that the Video/monitor/etc cost you could have purchased two empegs.

I also guess it depends on what you really consider "expensive".

David

[turbo2000pa]

An Empeg player with 10gigs of MP3's would be cool to have. A cost effective alternative would be a single DIN deck that plays the MP3 file format. Since one MP3 is an average of 3.5megs, you can fit roughly 200 MP3's on one CD vs 20 .wav files.

[reptiles]

Yes, the empeg tuner on the current model does receive US stations. It also has the RDS system that often displays the band name while playing (depending on the station, etc.) The built in tuner on the (old) prototype MK1 empegs is not very robust. The new tuner module is expected out soon.

The empeg comes with various hard drive configs. For example, you could fit two IBM portable 25gigs for a total of 50 Gigs or just get a basic 8gig single drive.

[MoBoost]

I use CD-MP3 player (http://www.compgeeks.com/details.asp?invtid=205-3333) in my car. It's just like a regular portable cd-player - but it plays burnt CDs full of MP3s (around 200) - and it was only $100 - pretty good bang for a buck :) I got it from CompGeeks (http://www.compgeeks.com/). They also have indash MP3 (http://www.compgeeks.com/details.asp?invtid=205-3735) player that uses any size HD!
Just thought you might be interested :)

P.S. I'm not affiliated with CompGeeks - just a satisfied customer :)

[Orange Crush]

Kenwood and Aiwa now both offer CD head units that play MP-3 format. The Aiwa is like 300 and the Kenwood is 600. While we are dreaming, could you imagine a DVD head unit that played MP3's. How cool would that be?

[dmoore]

The CD-R based players are a "cheap" skip to what people really want - hard drive based players. CD-R's or DVD's all sill have the same problems - skipping, damage, limited space (esp on the CDR's) and more moving/breakable parts.

[Orange Crush]

Okay, so I went to the website and checked it out. Pretty damn sweet, I am impressed, but still, I have to agree with everyone else on the price deal. Plus, it just doesn't have the features my head unit now has. Built in electronic cross over, sub out, radio text, traffic alert...etc. I only paid $450 for it. When the price becomes a little more reasonable and comes with more features, I am all over it. Of course with several gigs of MP3 I would rarely listen to the radio:D

[DragonKnight]

Kinda like this one myself.

http://www.compgeeks.com/details.asp?invtid=205-3735

I think they have some sort of code for CompGeeks that you can use to take an extra 10% off.

-Rich

[BMPsGSX]

Yeah that one at Computer Geeks looks like a really good deal. All you need is the hard drive. It makes me wonder why the Empeg is so much more.

[MoBoost]

Originally posted by dmoore
The CD-R based players are a "cheap" skip to what people really want - hard drive based players. CD-R's or DVD's all sill have the same problems - skipping, damage, limited space (esp on the CDR's) and more moving/breakable parts.

Man, the CD-MP3 player I have is virtually impossible to make skip - the thing has 4mb cache - and that's more then most of MP3 songs - therefore it doesn't skip at ALL while playing MP3s. Limited space - yeah .... same with HD - bigger but limited. Moving/brakable parts - HD are not a flash ROM either, you know .....
Sorry guys ... I get ticked off by claims without supports ... no flames tho :)

[reptiles]

Originally posted by Orange Crush
While we are dreaming, could you imagine a DVD head unit that played MP3's. How cool would that be?

My Apex 600 DVD plays MP3s. You'd have to remount and power it for car use though ;)

[welderx]

mp3 is cool in that you can go to napster and get all kinds of stuff.......some obscure and not in print but the format sucks. the fidelity is not close to that of a cd.
as far as skipping, with the cd i do not have a problem. that is with 600 pound per inch springs. the radar detector will not stay on the windshield but the player doesn't skip.

[raycer]

I have the Aiwa CDC-MP3 player in my Talon and think it's a great deal for $300. I've never had it skip and about 500 songs on one cd(at lower quality, about 300 cd quality) ain't bad either. My 2 complaints on it are that it has too many colors on the display and that the tuner isn't the greatest( I don't listen to radio much anyway)

MoBoost- Did you get the bezel to fit around it in your dash? I couldn't, so I left it without it and it looks ok. I'll try to make it fit when the weather cooperates:)
Here is a pic:

http://www.lg4performanceteam.org/mytalon/cdcmp3.jpg
The steering wheel remote is a nice addition too.
Right now I have a CD in there with 9 CDs on it and it still hjad room for about 3-4 more but I had none I wanted on it.

[Edited by raycer on 01-29-2001 at 11:09 AM]

[MoBoost]

I don't have a built-in MP3 player - mine is stand alone :)
But I do have a ElKhameleon and here how it is mounted. I trimmed down the bazel - looks ok.
http://moboost.chat.ru/AWD/Triple.jpg

[raycer]

I like the Gauges MoBoost. They look sweet there. Like I said, I've got to trim the bezel myself until it fits.

[95GST]

I'm tempted to sell my CD deck and 12 disc changer and get the Aiwa Mp3 instead. Can I get $300 by selling a deck and a changer?

I have trouble filling my changer up right now with CDs, but MP3? no problem.. I will be listening to music that I don't normally burn onto CDs.

How's the sound quality of this?

Does the face flap down and hides itself?

[raycer]

The sound quality is good enough for me. I hear no difference between it and my old Sony CD. The faceplate is a removable faceplace and does not hide itself ala Kenwood. You press the button the the upperright and it flips down to insert and remove CDs, and to remove it to store it in it's case.

I like my Aiwa very much and have had no trouble with it.

[95GST]

Hey, where can I buy the Aiwa Mp3 for the best price... perhaps online..?

Do you know if there is a buffer making it hard to skip, or does the thing real off the CD real time?

[cpeed]

Any answers to this? Also, Does the aiwa have a hard-drive in it? Anyone know how big it is? WHERE CAN I GET IT?

[MoBoost]

They are going on e-bay for about $245 :) Here are the search :) (http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?MfcISAPICommand=GetResult&query=aiwa+mp3&categoryid=&ht=1&st=0&category3=3293&maxRecordsPerPage=100&SortProperty=MetaEndSort)

[raycer]

You can get them online like MoBoost said or at Best Buy and Crutchfield. The Awia doesn't have a hard drive. It plays CDRs with Mpegs burned on it. You can put folders on the CD and divide the music up by album or whatever way you like. I'm not positive about the buffer, but mine doesn't skip at all.

Basically if you have a CD RW on your PC, the Aiwa is the easiest way to go.

[cpeed]

Hmmm, I want something that will remember the songs from the cd's

[phrenzy]

I've been considering building an mp3 player for my car. I've got enough parts laying around here to do it, and it would probably get me some bonus points at the local SPL shootouts. hmmmm, quite an idea...

<twiddles fingers>

[ineedcolor]

Just wanted you all to know that because of the original post in this thread, I investigated the Empeg...All I can say is WOW, it is everything it claims to be and more...below is a post I made earlier tonight and a pic of my install and my ride...

The player is just amazing, it did cost me a whole bunch ($1600) but for the capabilities it has justified it for me. I have 12 GB of music storage and at the bitrate I use (100% VBR) I have room for about 1700 songs! I just finished a two-day trip cross the northern states to Winnipeg and with the music shuffle engaged, I only just scatched the surface of the tunes I had at my fingertips...it was sooooo great not to have to fumble for discs and get bored of my tunes so quickly like I used to before...not to mention no skipping with the advanced cacheing the player uses! I am really happy with my purchase. If there are people interested in looking into getting one, here is the URL: http://www.empeg.com

http://empeg.comms.net/files/28990-empeg_laser.jpg
http://empeg.comms.net/files/28991-laser_front_new.jpg

[MoBoost]

Ouch - expensive :(
Could've done for a quater of price tho:
http://www.compgeeks.com/details.asp?invtid=NEO25B10-2

[aktalon]

FWIW, there are about 9 single DIN cd MP3 players out now. You can see them all on Crutchfield. Also there are retailers that sell new players through EBay and the prices are unbeatable. I was gonna pick up a Kenwood 8017 on Ebay for $309, but came across an Aiwa for $229 SHIPPED! You can put around 200 songs per CD, if thats not enough for you then you have issues!

[ineedcolor]

Actually my issue was to get away from using CD's altogether, which I was able to do with the Empeg...The Empeg/Rio car uses a shock resistant laptop hard drive(s) and only spins up for short periods to read data...therefore the disc motor will not wear out constantly spinning like a CD players will and the unit will not skip. period. I don't know about you all but after you have your whole music collection at your finger tips, it's kinda hard to imagine traveling with a handfull of discs anymore...200 songs per disc or no. Finally, with massive storage space, I can afford to use extremely high-bitrate files, resulting in high quality music sound with my high-end sound system...you can't do that with a MP3 cd player (unless you want fewer songs on your burned discs, defeating the whole reason to have MP3 in you car anyways) My opinion only :)

[95GST]

I have the NEO35 player it is about $350 + $65 for the remote unit. I couldn't get my old 6GB drive to work so I got the IBM 40GB as recommended. I can't seem to find enough songs to fill it after encoding numerous CDs that I own. It works great except in my car there is a slight high pitch HD whine that you can hear at low volume levels. But I have aftermarket tweeters so that could be the problem.

Other than that it works very well, and I am very happy being able to listen to MP3 in my car. I drove for 5 hrs non stop and not a glitch. I would have bored to death with a CD changer because the selection is much less.

I got mine from http://www.funmp3players.com they sell quite a few cool MP3 gadget if you are interested.

[aktalon]

Well... for $229 vs. $1600, I can deal with having my whole collection on about 5 CDs, instead of a harddrive. The quality is really not compromised unless you are into competition or something. I used to have an Alpine, which supposedly awesome fidelity, and the difference is barely noticable with 128 quality mp3s. And regardless of what the technicalities might imply, my aiwa does NOT skip. Now I suppose that if you were into offroading your DSM it could be another story. :) I think your player is really cool, but just not economicaly feasible for most of us! That could buy a nice turbo and fmic!

[ineedcolor]

you know, it is a horrendous amount but for me, I am serious about having quality tunes in my car and a good selection. My prior head unit was $1100 (Cdn) anyway...but I had the money at hand and decided to go with it...I am really happy with it and the money is spent so....:D

[MoBoost]

Originally posted by ineedcolor
...I am really happy with it and ...

And THAT's the most important thing of all!!! :)

[DSMing91]

I'm in the market of looking into a decent mp3 head unit for my car. What do you guys think of a 12 cd/mp3 player changer that connects to any car radio? I want the extra space for more music and I won't spend 1 gran, but at the same time I want to be able to play more music than what one CD of mp3's can hold at a time ;). I was thinking an mp3/cd changer by JVC would be right inbetween.

Is it worth it? I'll spend up to $400. My goal is just to play mp3s. I have a shitlaod of cool mixes that I can't really play in my car since I don't have an MP3 player.

Nothing fancy :)


Thanks guys!

[white 2g awd]

i don't think you gotta spend that much....you said nothing fancy, i buy all my audio stuff on ebay and had no probs...i found these for ya: http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?cgiurl=http%3A%2F%2Fcgi.ebay.com%2Fws%2F&krd=1&from=R8&MfcISAPICommand=GetResult&ht=1&SortProperty=MetaEndSort&query=mp3%2Fcd+changer

Dustin

[DSMing91]

I actaully found some decent ones off that link. Thanks Dustin! :)

[white 2g awd]

if ya spend some more time, and word the searches a little different you might get more, but that was just a quick one. glad it helped.

Dustin

[Crazy29187]

Why the talk about skipping CDs? I have probably had my CD player skip all of 5 times in my Talon in 4 years. And that's on shitty New York roads. And when it's time to drive fast on rough roads (read: race), I don't listen to the radio.

Anyway, instead of spending out the ass on this thing, I've considered this. Take my old desktop computer, mount it in the trunk, and then run the sound to the auxilary input of my current CD player. Then I'd get one of those small LCD monitors and hook it up to the computer. Run the power switch to the front of the car. Put the mouse in the center console. Then, not only do I have a shit load of MP3s at my disposal, but I also wouldn't need to worry about having my laptop to run DSMLink in the future, knocking out two birds with one stone!

[welderx]

Originally posted by Crazy29187
Why the talk about skipping CDs? I have probably had my CD player skip all of 5 times in my Talon in 4 years. And that's on shitty New York roads. And when it's time to drive fast on rough roads (read: race), I don't listen to the radio.

Anyway, instead of spending out the ass on this thing, I've considered this. Take my old desktop computer, mount it in the trunk, and then run the sound to the auxilary input of my current CD player. Then I'd get one of those small LCD monitors and hook it up to the computer. Run the power switch to the front of the car. Put the mouse in the center console. Then, not only do I have a shit load of MP3s at my disposal, but I also wouldn't need to worry about having my laptop to run DSMLink in the future, knocking out two birds with one stone!

uh, your probably a lot younger....before suspensions and buffers were improved skipping was common. preamp output voltages were less than half a volt too. things are better now.
your scheme would indeed work but cost more and sound worse than an investment in a modest head unit.
a sound card in a computer is far from hi-fi and is not intended to drive 8 feet of rca cable.....your noise floor will be really high.

[Crazy29187]

Originally posted by welderx


uh, your probably a lot younger....before suspensions and buffers were improved skipping was common. preamp output voltages were less than half a volt too. things are better now.
your scheme would indeed work but cost more and sound worse than an investment in a modest head unit.
a sound card in a computer is far from hi-fi and is not intended to drive 8 feet of rca cable.....your noise floor will be really high.

At first it seemed like you were condescending toward me, but after I reread your post a few times, I don't think you are. At first glance, starting off by saying I'm younger seems like you're implying I'm young and stupid and of the Fast and Furious generation wanting to get the computer that says "Danger! Manfold Damage!" or whatever from that movie, but now I see that you're just saying that back in the day, CD players sucked. I know they used to, I've been around a while, I once had a shit CD player. So, I'll delete the little rant I was about to type ;)

$1600 or whatever was said earlier is not what many would consider a modest head unit. That's part of the reason why this thread is so long, because many people think that's crazy.

As for my suggestion, you could get a raw LCD screen for less than $250 probably. Your desktop would be free, assuming you'd use the one you got. Sound cards are indeed hifi these days, they're THX certified, Dolby Digital, etc. Afterall, it's not an acoustical dream inside the car anyway. But, you could be right about the 8 feet of RCA cable. Maybe not though, because the new Media Center PCs for example are designed to run cable to your home theater components, so I assume they sell some cables at 8 feet or longer.

All in all, if you went out and got the LCD, RCA cable, power inverter and maybe a good sound card, you'd spend like $5-600 tops, and it'd be a custom thing that would serve the dual purpose of running the DSMLink.

I think it might be kinda cool, and definitely unique. If I were to do it, which I won't because it is indeed impractical to me and just a suggestion for someone who might want to, I would hack the shit out of a junker center dash trim thing, relocate the HVAC controls somewhere, make the vent horizontal and put a hole for the screen under the vent (1G). Put some sort of body filler on there, smooth it out, paint it black, put it back on there, and have at it. Maybe someone could make a project out of it and have it come out nice. I know I could if I wanted to, but I really dont want to. The whole point is, to each his own; to the guy who bought the $1,600 unit, it's worth it to him and that's all that matters, and my idea may be worth it to someone else.

Have a santa: :santa: