Ritz

I just received a phatbox from a VW dealer (with the Audi interface cable for my Bose Symphony head unit). I have 2 questions:

1. Is there an easier way to populate the disk cartridge other than using their cheesy music manager software?

2. Is there a source for new cartridges with sane pricing? The prices for a 40gig cartridge from the phatnoise website is substantially more expensive than I can buy a 250g USB2/Firewire external disk+enclosure @ CompUSA. That strikes me as being just a BIT unreasonable. I don't mind paying a small premium, but not 3-times or 4-times the cost of the raw storage.

2.5 (OK, so I have another question) Has anyone been able to "upgrade a phatnoise cartidge with a larger disk? I'm told the disk has an encrypted file with a private DES key hashing the brand/serial# of the drive on a hidden sector or somesuch.

Cheers,

mobsTTa

1. no

2. no

2.5 probably not, but try the phatnoise forums

Rian Colorado

and actually, it's:

No
No
and
NO

I'm constantly ticked off by their prices for the DMS's (as I work for a major storage manuf.) I believe they just dropped the 20G DMS as well. (the 40G wasn't selling well at the RIDICULAS price, so they dropped the less expensive option)

The funny thing is they charge that for DMS's for the home player. I can buy a dedicated PC for that price!

Rian

Ritz

Given that it's just an embedded linux system on a rather "wimpy" maverick/ARM processor, I'm guessing they are using, at best, a 64-bit key...since they're only trying to make it a pain in the *** to buy your own cheap storage and not to protect ICBM launch codes. But we'll see. Film at 11.

I think that's just really crappy customer service to rape your customers for disk storage after they've already spent the money on the phatbox/software bundle from their dealer.

I really like the unit now that I've got it installed (a 5 minute process since the Symphony/Bose headunit in my A6 was prewired for a CD changer). I've got about a half terabyte of my CD collection encoded at 320kbit/sec and it sounds as good as a CD...at least to my ears.

When I have a little time, I'll have to see about hacking a wifi interface so I can populate the DMS from inside the house while the car is parked in the driveway. :-)

Cheers,

mobsTTa

We look forward to you advancing the cause for others less inclined.