TheEMPEG MK2a is designed to fit into
your car dash. It’s a single DIN sized unit, like most other car audio
heads; and is pull-out removable, which is handy both for security and
for connecting up to your PC to get music onto the player. A retracting
carrying handle is integrated into the product, and an optional nylon
carry case is also available.
A central feature of the player is the
large VFD (Vaccum Flourescent Display) which provides the user interface
and dazzling visualisations. VFD offers a number of advantages over LCD
technology including superior day and night contrast and an excellent
viewing angle. Your player will come with a blue display panel, and you
can choose from three alternative panels (amber, red or green) as a
user-fittable upgrade.
The supplied
car mount fits securely into your DIN bay, and connects permanantly into your
car wiring system. The player slides in and out of the car mount,
automatically making the required connections. The player is designed so that
it can be safely removed at any time, and the current play position (and other
settings) are restored the next time it is inserted. Additional car mounts can
be purchased so you can move your player between cars, the boat, the caravan,
even the plane!
The player
doesn't have an internal amplifier, but provides quad 4V line outputs for
connection to a standard external amp, available from any car audio dealer.
The outputs are driven by a Philips ICE DSP with integral 16-bit DACs feeding
a Burr Brown pre-amp stage. The DSP also provides a 20 band parametric
equaliser which can be configured as 2 x 10-band or 4 x 5-band. Each of the 20
equaliser bands is fully parametric, with adjustable frequency, Q, and gain
settings. This powerful feature gives audiophiles unprecedented control over
their sound, while still allowing novices to use the equaliser in a more
traditional fashion.
All
of the Empeg connections are standard (ISO power and accessories connector,
RCA jacks for line signals) and any experienced car audio technician should be
able to install the player. As well as line outputs, the car player has a
stereo line input so you can connect your existing radio into the Empeg
(taking advantage of the EQ and visualisations) or vice versa. Other
connections include microphone input, mobile phone mute, display dimmer, amp
and antenna control line, data interface and modular tuner interface.
The unit is no
harder to install than any other head unit: however, if you are not
experienced with head unit installation we recommend you leave the job to a
professional. As with other two-part (i.e. head unit & separate amplifier)
combination systems, the sound quality - and in particular audio interference
- is greatly affected by the way the units are wired.
The player has
a modular tuner interface, for which an AM/FM module is initially available.
The module includes RDS (Radio Data System) for station naming, auto re-tuning
and traffic announcements - RDS stations are commonplace in Europe and
steadily increasing in the USA. Because the tuner is modular it is future
proof; we could develop modules for DAB (Digital Audio Broadcast), XM and
future standards if the demand arises. The modules simply plug in to the
modular tuner connector.
When linked to
your PC, you can download music via Serial, Ethernet or USB. Serial and USB
connection cables are supplied as standard. The player also has domestic line
level (1V) audio outputs on RCA jacks for connection to a home stereo. An AC
power adapter is included with the package - this is a product for the home as
well as the car!
Control is via
the front panel controls (four ergonomic buttons and a rotary-plus-push
control) or the supplied credit-card-sized infrared remote. The player also
has an IrDA interface, for which some of our third party developers are
currently researching applications. The serial data interface has also proven
popular with third party developers - for example, one developer has a GPS
route finding project underway.
The player uses
2.5" laptop hard drives (up to two of them) to store your music. These
are fully shock protected and offer excellent storage capacities compared to
other media currently available. If you buy a single drive unit (up to 30Gb)
you can upgrade with a second drive at a later date. Within the terms of the
12 month warranty the upgrade is fitted at our service centre. The shock
protection works at three levels - first, the laptop drives that we fit have
excellent shock and vibration tolerances - second, the drives are mounted on a
shock resistant platform designed specifically for this product - and third,
the drives are only occassionally spun up whilst data is read into a memory
cache.
Display
Drop down
menu system
The
Empeg is fast and intuitive to operate, using the front panel
controls, the infrared remote or a combination of the two. In future
you will be able to use voice recognition to access common functions
and select music in a hands free fashion.
Current track details
The
front panel has four ergonomic control buttons and a rotary control
which can be pressed. Each button provides different functions
depending upon what the player is currently doing, and whether you
press and release or press and hold. The rotary control provides fast
access to common settings such as volume and balance and the infrared
remote control provides direct access to the player's most important
functions.
20 band
parametric eq
The
front panel has four ergonomic control buttons and a rotary control
which can be pressed. Each button provides different functions
depending upon what the player is currently doing, and whether you
press and release or press and hold. The rotary control provides fast
access to common settings such as volume and balance and the infrared
remote control provides direct access to the player's most important
functions.
128 point
real time fft
There
are other ways to access your music as well. You can search for tracks
by title, artist, album, genre and year and also allocate PIN number
to tracks or groups that you listen to often. The whole time you use
it, your car player will make notes about your listening preferences
allowing you to easily avoid (and maybe even remove) those tracks that
you usually skip past, or request some tracks that you haven't heard
in a while. If you share your car with another driver, or perhaps have
regular passengers with different music tastes, you can set up filters
to ensure that you'll only hear tracks that appeal to everyone
currently in the vehicle.
Popup volume adjustment
The
Empeg has become reknowned for its large display and stunning
graphics. Whilst your music is playing you can choose whether you want
to see information about the current track, the play line-up, or one
of the fully active visualisations. Visualisations are impressive
graphic displays which react to the music, whether it is coming from
your own collection, from the radio or from the auxilliary source.
There are currently about 30 visualisations and we are adding to them
all the time. This is a feature guaranteed to impress your passengers!
With
a potentially vast library of music at your disposal, the most
important job of the player software is to help you select the music
you want to listen to when you want to hear it. Using the PC software,
music can be organised on your player in a hierarchical database,
along with track information such as artist, genre and so forth. You
can browse this database using the menu system and select specific
tracks or groups of tracks that you wish to hear - for example, if you
play your "Rock" group then you'll hear everything you filed
in there - if you continue down to "Queen" then you'll hear
the appropriate tracks - and if you continue to "Bohemian
Rhapsody" then that's what will be played. That's just an
example, you get to choose your own music structure so you'll always
know where to find your tracks. Furthermore, tracks can exist in more
than one group at a time, offering great flexibility in playlist
design.
The
software in the Empeg player is fully upgradeable via your PC
connection. Upgrades are posted regularly to our web site and are
almost always free of charge. Sometimes upgrades include new
visualisations or major items of functionality - for example, Microsoft
WMA (an alternative to MP3) is coming soon.
Software
Download
software is provided for Windows 98/2000 and Linux. The program runs on your
home computer and communicates with your player via a USB, Ethernet or serial
(RS232) connection. It is responsible for managing the music database on your
Empeg player, including loading tracks, setting and changing track details and
organising your music.
A
third party is developing a free Java version of the downloader for use with
Mac OS, Solaris and other platforms for which a Java engine is available.
Before music can be played by the Empeg it must be encoded in a suitable
format. We currently support MP3, MP2, WMA and WAV. MP3 and WMA audio is
highly compressed yet maintains excellent audio characteristics, which is why
you can store so much music on your Empeg. The Empeg software does not perform
the encoding - this may have been performed by your music vendor or, if you
wish to encode your own CD collection, a third party product is required.
There are many such products - some free, some commercial - available from the
Internet and computer stores.
It
is particularly convenient for your MP3 encoded tracks to have ID3 tags. This
feature of many encoding programs incorporates track titles, artist names and
other details into the encoded track - often automatically via Internet music
databases. If these details are included at the time of encoding it will save
you time later. Both Version 1 and Version 2 (ID3V1 and ID3V2) formats are
supported.
Tracks
on the Empeg player are organised into playlists. A playlist is simply a
collection of tracks that are grouped together, perhaps because they have a
common theme; they may be from a certain album, by a certain artist, or of a
certain genre. A playlist can contain further playlists (known as nested
lists), and it is this hierarchy that provides for powerful selection of music
on the player. The way in which you choose to organise your music will reflect
your personal preferences.
Whenever
you add playlists and tracks, or change the music database in any other way,
the changes are stored within the download software but not yet reflected to
your Empeg player. This allows you to work quickly; adding tracks and
organising your music; without lots of delays every time some data needs to be
transferred to the player. When you are finished updating, you must
synchronise the player music database with the changes. The synchronisation
process can take anything from several seconds to several hours, depending
upon how much new music you have added to the database and whether you are
using USB, Ethernet or Serial. The Synchronise window will keep you up to date
with the progress of the operation but it does not need further interaction
until the process in complete.
Features
Benefits
Ergonomic
controls
Adjust
your settings via the four ergonomic buttons and a rotary-plus-push
control on the front panel or use the pocket size infrared remote
control (included).
Configurable
20-band parametric equalizer
The 20
band parametric equalizer can be configured as 2x10-bands or 4x5-bands.
Each of the 20 bands is fully parametric, with adjustable frequency, Q
and gain settings.
Shock-Skip
protected hard drive
The Empeg Player uses a 10GB 2.5" laptop hard drive to store music and is
fully shock protected. The shock protection works at three levels -
first, the hard drive has excellent shock and vibration tolerances -
second, the drive is mounted on a shock resistant platform - third, the
drive is only occasionally spun up while data is read into a memory
cache.
Expandable
Power
The Empeg
Player doesn't have an internal amplifier, but provides quad 4V line
outputs for connection to a standard external amp, available from any
car audio dealer. The outputs are driven by a Philips ICE DSP with
integral 16-bit DACs feeding a Burr Brown pre-amp stage.
Portability
'How it works'
The
supplied car mount fits securely into your DIN bay and connects
permanently into your car audio wiring system. The Empeg Player slides
in and out of the car mount, automatically making the required
connections. The player is designed so that it can be safely removed at
any time and the current play position, as well as other settings, is
restored the next time it is inserted. Additional car mounts can be
purchased so you can move your player between vehicles.
Empeg
Player Connections
All of the
Empeg Player connections are standard (ISO power and accessories
connector, RCA jacks for line signals) and any experienced car audio
technician should be able to install the player. As well as output
lines, the car player has a stereo line input so you can connect your
existing radio into the Empeg Player. Other connections include
microphone input, mobile phone mute, display dimmer, amp and antenna
control line, data interface and modular tuner interface.
Specifications
Processor
220MHz
StrongARM S-1100-DA
Flash memory
1Mb
RAM
16Mb
60ns FPM
DSP
SAA7705H
DACs
16
bit sign-magnitude, fourfold oversampling digital filters, noise shaping
Display
128
x 32 dot matrix vacuum fluorescent display, 2 bits per pixel
IR
SIR
IrDA I/O, Consumer IR input
Controls
4
pushbuttons, 1 rotary+push
HDD ports
ATA
2.5" HDD standard 2MM header
HDD physical
ATA
2.5" HDD up to 17mm, corner mounting screws
Serial IO
9-pin
PC serial port, data rate to 230Kbits/s, also docked in-car
USB
12Mbit/s
standard type B socket on head unit
Ethernet
10BaseT
RJ45 socket on head unit
Power input
+12V
on ISO connector fused at 2A with inline fuseholder
Grounding
Negative
earth only
Auxillary control output
+12V
@ 1A maximum on ISO connector
Audio outputs
4V
line level front & rear stereo RCA line jacks
1V
stereo RCA sockets on head unit
Audio inputs
1V
line level stereo RCA line jacks
Other features
On
board temperature sensor
Software
controlled display brightness
Display
night mode input (headlight dim)
Audio
mute input (for mobile phones)
Audio
DAC
sample rate
fixed
44.1KHz
DAC typical S/N ratio
110dBA
DAC typical output noise
3uV
DAC typical THD + N
1Khz,
0dB -70dBA
DAC typical dynamic range
1Khz
(-60dB) 102dBA
DAC max crosstalk
10Khz
-69dB
Aux input frequency response
20Hz
to 18KHz
Aux input typical channel seperation
50dB
Volume control range
-66dB
to +20dB
Balance attenuation range LR
0dB
to -30dB
Fader attenuation range FR
0dB
to -30dB
Tone control range, bass/treble
-12dB
to +15dB
Dynamic loudness level range
0dB
to +14dB
Dynamic loudness offset range
0dB
to +24dB
Dynamic bass boost level range
0dB
to +14dB
Dynamic bass boost offset range
0dB
to +24dB
Equaliser
20
band parametric set as 2 x 10-band or 4 x 5-band
Other audio features
Dynamic
range compression
Electrical
Standby
power
2.75
Watts
Standby power, drive spun up
3.30
Watts
Operating power, hard drive spun down
6.20
Watts
Operating power, peak
8.90
Watts
Input voltage
7
to 16 VDC
Switched auxillary output
1A
maximum load
Environmental
Operating
temperature range
5
deg. C to 55 deg. C
Standby temperature range
-20
deg. C to 60 deg. C
Non-operating temperature range
TBA
Humidity, operating
10%
to 90% RH, non-condensing
Humidity, non-operating
5%
to 95% RH, non-condensing
Shock, operating
150G
Shock, non-operating
400G
Physical
(maximum)
Docking
unit
2
inches (50mm) high
7.2
inches (183mm) wide
6.8
inches (173mm) deep
Head unit
2.2
inches (55mm) high
7.3
inches (186mm) wide
6.0
inches (152mm) deep
Weight
5.5
pounds (2.5kg) with two drives
Case material
0.04
inch (1mm) stainless steel
Note:
figures vary depending on hard drive type fitted, power consumption
figures are shown with a single 20Gb drive. Drives are kept spun down as
much as possible during operation.
Specifications
are subject to change without notice
