Satellite Radio
 

I have pretty much made up my mind between Sirius and XM satellite radio. I am going with Sirius. I need to decide which receiver to buy. I want a plug and play portable for my car and home. Anyone use Audiovox, Blaupaunk, or JVC satellite players or the Sportster model?

Was there a reason your chose Sirius radio? XM is clearly the better company on many levels and offers more.

I have the Sportster model and use it in my car and house. I think it is great.

Who says XM is clearly better? Most reports that I have heard say that Sirius has a bigger upside for the future. I have never listened to XM but I have had Sirius for 6 months and I don't ever plan on getting rid of it.

I've seen people here (in Canada) with Sirius. Dunno how they got it.... I'm very interested in getting it.

Sirius has better sports (NBA/NFL/College), generally has better reception (important if you'll use it indoors), and better sound depending on stations. Some people seem to notice compression artifacts on one vs the other but I notice the sound system more than anything else. Neither match the quality of CD's or 192+Kb mp3's. Reception depends on your location vs. satellites & repeaters. (XM has two at the equator, Sirius has 3 in elliptical orbits so they're higher in the sky.) Ideally check with people in your area who have tried both, but beware "I bought it so it must be better." There's some heated religion out there. Programming is slightly different between the two and could be the more important consideration.

Sirius seems to have more to interest me. The music they both offer are about the same. sirius has NFL/NBA/College basketball/NHL/Nascar is switching in a couple years/Howard Stern starts in 2006. More programming. XM is the better stock investment. You can also stream Sirius on the web for free as a subscriber, whereas XM charges a fee.

Starting April 1st Online steaming for XM will be included in the price. Opie and Anthony will no longer be a premium service. They already have the contract with MLB too. XM is always on top of the new technology too, like the XM MyFi where you can record and listen when you want.

Thats makes it even harder to decide, however, I heard (rumour?)that Sirius broacasts in 128 kps and Xm at 96 kps. I do like the idea of the MyFi though. Anyone use the Audiovox SIRPNP3?

I have XM and I'm glad I got it over Sirius. XM has all the MLB games and also the Roadie, even though I think Sirius has something Roadie-like. I dunno. I hear the music is essentially the same.

I have Sirius and I like it just fine. We considered both XM and Sirius when making our decision. Since we were going in for the long haul, my wife (MBA trained) did an analysis of both companies, their market standing, business plan etc. Her conclusion was that Sirius had better alliances with talent and contracts (NFL, NBA, etc. vs. MLB for XM). So we went with Sirius and opted for a lifetime subscription (no monthly fees). We are both happy with it and enjoy the streaming at work for free as well.

We bought a SIRPNP2 with the boombox from Audiovox, the car adapter, and the home adapter all bundled for $199 direct from Sirius. Everything was pretty easy to set-up and we didn't need to buy any additional parts or adapters.

Thanks for all the replys, I got my audiovox SIRPNP2 with the car kit and home kit and it works great. I heard the lifetime subscription is good only for thr life of the radio, not the subscribers life. True?

DO NOT get the lifetime subscription. With Sirius it's the only thing I dislike. It is $500 for the life of the receiver. When it shits out, you are screwed.

Sirius can be had with a yearly subscription for about $11-12 per month. Extra receivers are $6 a month. Computer listening is included in the price, and there are no commercials anywhere.

I've listened to both, and I definately like Sirius' rock selections better. If you like rock, be sure to program 23, 19, 16, 15, 14 all in. You can always find a great song on one of the five.

I have a Kenwood reciever in my truck and in the house/Caravan we use the small Kenwood reciever that goes in the two different docking stations.

XM is changing rates to parallel those of Sirius in a few months, now you get Sirius rates plus commercials. If you live in a large city, they (XM) have repeaters in metro areas. I live in the sticks (northern Michigan), and the reception here is poor with XM, where with Sirius we have never had a problem unless I park under a metal deck.

I'm sure you'll love Sirius, I've had it for about two years & really enjoy it. I haven't heard a radio commercial at home, in my car, or at work in two years!

I have Sirius satellite radio and am extremely happy with it. I tested and tried out each service extensively before making a decision, and Sirius was my choice by a unanimous margin.

As was stated previously, I have noticed compression/audio artifacts in both services while traveling (I have Sirius in my 2001 Honda Civic, my brother has XM in his 1995 Chevy Blazer). I especially notice the artifacts when going through heavily wooded areas when listening to high quality music but notice it much less on the voice/talk radio streams.

While I am not a huge Howard Stern fan (I'm a dedicated Bob & Tom listener, which I cannot get via satellite radio), I do believe that his move from broadcast to sirius is a huge step in the right direction for Sirius and for Satellite radio in general.

Realistically it's all about:

a) What system your existing car audio might be ready for

b) Which systems programming you like better


First of all, the technology is virtually the same. Saying that XM is always up on the technology makes no sense, as the MyFi could be developed for Sirius with about a days engineering. There may be licensing or copyrights involved, but that could go either way. As for pricing, pricing is likely to change every so often, with both sides one-upping each other now and again. It's just like Sat TV or Cable. Even the programming changes. Contracts get signed, get broken, shows cancel, DJs die... whatever... but programming would probably be the number one thing to look for between the two. It's not like cable vs. satellite, where landlines provide higher bandwidth and (generally) better quality. XM and Sirius are both sat-based, both have some artifacting, both sound better than radio, worse than CD... *shrug* There's honestly not much to have an opinion about. Even hardware... that's like going with Cox or Comcast over DishTV because they have a silver HD box, and DishTV has a black one... (Again, my opinion stands that cable is GENERALLY a better option... just so there's no confusion).

I used to be a staunch advocate of XM, then they got rid of XM Liquid Metal. Why did they get rid of their second most popular rock station? Well, they got a license with MLB and thought it was necessary to set up 3 stations for it. I think it's something like this: the first is live baseball coverage, the second is repeats of prior games, and the third is "Major Leage Baseball en Espanol". The funny thing is that their Christian stations (all three of them) have some of the lowest ratings in their lineup, but getting rid of them would cause a stir. So they decided to axe the new black/death metal station.

I'm seriously looking into Sirius at the moment. Squizz, the only "hard" new rock station they have has gone to pot in a flood of pop-rock. Atleast they play Rammstein, Cradle of Filth, Ministry, Mudvayne and Marilyn Manson to make up for it. Plus, XM just anounced a rate increase from $9.95 to $12.95, so I'm not so happy about that either. It's sad that I listen to more CDs than subscription radio because of this.

But as far as reception and audio quality goes, XM is great. I've never had a problem with reception unless I was in a parking garage or something and the signal was blocked. The audio quality is about the same with both. There may be subtle differences, but it doesn't make one any better than the other.

EDIT: Both Sirius and XM have a free 3-day online trial period. The quality isn't good, but I'm listening to Sirius right now :)

Thanks, great advice and I appreciate everyones input. Having Sirius for 2 weeks now, I'm glad I picked them. Listening to Sirius Disorder now with David Johansen (founder of the New York Dolls) hosting David Johansen Mansion of Fun show. Lots to listen to.

P-Naughty: there's only one MLB channel (not including the repeats and Spanish)? I thought I remember reading somewhere that every single simultaneous MLB broadcast would be available. Is that not true?

If so, my future decision just got much easier. I really don't want to miss out on Stern, but I'm also a big MLB fan. But with only one channel it wouldn't really help all that much.

channels 176 - 190 are MLB game channels, channel 175 is a single channel that is baseball progamming but not necessarily games

http://www.xmradio.com/programming/f...sp?sort=number

d'oh, yep, you're right (from your link):hm, back to the drawing board, especially because I'm away from my home town and would love to hear the home game. of course, it does beg the question: which broadcast will they use for each game? always the home one?

well Stern still probably trumps MLB, so we'll see. though I'll want to hear excerpts from his new format before I fully commit. (I don't plan on buying until after the near year anyway.)

Sirius has the NFL network and all the NFL games during the season. I would much rather listen to the NFL Network in the offseason instead of even 1 MLB game. But thats just my opinion.

I love the NFL but have never been into NFL radio broadcasts, although I'll listen when I need to follow a game from the car. Baseball on the other hand is a natural for the radio.

Yeah, I'm a big fan of MLB too. Well, I don't care anything about your team, unless it's the Braves. :D

I'm using the trial of Sirius and liking it so far, but I recommend getting the free three day trial of both. With XM you get more live performances and to hear new music before anyone else, but it's all up to you.

i think people will be happy with wither one. no commercials=happier customers

If I understand correctly, there's only no commercials on the music stations. I think the talk shows still have commercials. At the very least the hosts need to be able to take breaks, and I'm pretty sure there are commercials in the breaks.

Can anyone with Sirius/XM confirm?

XM's talk channels do take commercials. I think it's as you said, for the hosts.

While trying to decide if I wanted a Sirius radio or not I found this link @ bestbuy.com

My wife has an XM radio and she loves it. I liked it as well but wanted to explore Sirius before I got one myself. I took advantage of the three day free trial for streaming music from Sirius and decided the music choices on Sirius were more to my liking than XM. Channels 16 (The Vault) 19 (Buzzsaw) and 23 (Hair Nation) gave me more of what I wanted to listen to. I could not get Raw Dog, the comedy channel on Sirius, to work on the free trial. I have found it to not be as good as XM's adult comedy channel though. I've only heard a bit of Mitch Hedberg and Lewis Black and no Carlin. Maybe it will get better. I don't really give two shits about the Howard Stern switch coming up, but who knows, maybe it will be OK (I doubt it). The NFL coverage was also a deciding factor for me. Just my 2 cents.

It is all about Stern, I love the show, and the news!

I had XM for a year and now I've got Sirius. Sirius is the better of the two. Better music, better reception, better sound, and the lowest priced receiver is much better than XM's. Plus, Howard is coming to Sirius in a month.

I've had XM for over a year and it suits me for what I want, a variety of commercial-free music and uncensored comedy.. I rarely listen to any of the sports, talk or news.

I looked at both and what scares me about Sirius was the money they are throwing for their sports and Stern, that's a ton of money, and while I'm sure they will get a large influx for Stern, not sure that it'll be enough to keep them above water, some will stay some may move on. I liked XMs conservative approach, even though neither have seen profits yet.. XM seems poised to break even 1st.

I got Sirrius over XM just because of Stern. I love the hard rock channels and they have a 24/7 Elvis channel! The Sportster model suits me good.

Both XM and Sirius just launched here in Canada. The main reason I would get Sirius is because they signed a deal with the CBC. Now I can get CBC 3 on the air rather than just on a website plus Radio one and two.

Apparently Sirius Canada is not picking up Stern. I wonder if you can recieve American Channels as well as the Canadian ones?

I definately want to get one but I can't justify the expense right now.

Woa that sucks. Does anyone know why?

XM here,, going on three years and I would not look back unless something crazy happened to make me change over to Sirius, but as for sat. radio I will never go without....kinda one of them things like broadband internet I will never go with anything else, unless something better comes along.

I do frown about not having NFL, but for the MLB, the big 10, Pac 10 and ACC conference basket and football I cannot complain one bit. 20 on 20 is always pretty cool, some of the alternative stations, Lucy and Ethel are decent too, I shy away from the rock but the rap stations are decent as well. Quality between the two is pretty much the same from what I could tell, but I do not have an audiophiles ear, just my own and if it sounds good to me I roll with it, not to mention my Pioneer head unit in the Taurus was XM ready so all I needed was a receiver and antenna.

One person mentioned that the lifetime subscription for Sirius is only for the receiver, which I thought was dumb. So I emailed the company about upgrades, and here was there response:



Still a pretty damn good deal, even with the stupid-ass stipulations.

Unless the rates begin to fall rapidly from where they are. At the current subscription rate, one would have to keep their receiver a bit more than 38 months to see a benefit. Then add another 6 months if you decide to upgrade equipment only one time in that 38 month period. Any drops in the subscription price would extend that time.

Did the lifetime price go up? I recall something like $299. I could be getting TiVo or other services confused with it.

The lifetime is 500 bucks. I do not know if that is an increase or not though.

stern isn't even on sirus yet ;) .. once he transfers i'm sure he'll be there

Nope. I got this from a recent article in the Globe and Mail.

Link: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servl...y=howard+stern

I suspect it's purely a business decision rather than any prudish attitude. Howard Stern's fm show didn't last up here (for whatever reason) and the companies are also forced to provide a certain amount of Canadian content channels, effectively narrowing the american streams to choose from.

I am curious about whether American channels will bleed through to Canadian Receivers. I imagine an American traveller with an American receiver will be able to listen while up here across the border.

i just picked up my sirius radio today :thumbsup:

XM here too. I had access to both before making my decision. Sirius came with my Dish and XM came with my AOL. I could only find three music stations of interest on Sirius whereas with XM, well, I am in pig heaven. So many choices, so much variety, and really really good deejays who program great stuff.