XM or Sirius?

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I'm entertaining the idea of satellite radio in my truck. I've gotten to where I just can't take much more of the crap on our local stations.

My brother has XM and really likes it,but I don't know of anyone with Sirius.

I asked this question on another board,and most people were going with Sirius,basically because Howard Stern is on Sirius. I don't listen to Stern,so that makes no difference.

Thoughts?
 
It used to be that XM had better sound quality than Sirius, but I haven't heard of any comparison test in the last year or two.
 
I hve a sirius unit...

It was cheaper, and I liked the channel 'layout', i.e. which stations were which numbers better than XM.

I listen to Stern on and off... not a real consideration.

It had all the channels I wanted, works fine (I keep the antenna on my dash, and take myu unit from car to car, playing through the cassette, the aux-in or the RF modulator, depending on which car/which setup Im using.

I could use it inside as well, which is nice.

Im able to cut back on CD purchases...

They gave me a free month when I bought 11.

I'm happy with sirius, but I dont think you can go wrong with either - buy the better deal, and buy the unit that is the most intuitive as soon as you start fiddling with it. For me it was sirius with the JVC reciever.

JMH
 
keep the comments coming, I'm in the same boat as Stewart Fan.

Houston's only 24/7 classical station went to Estereo Latino format and the PBS station has too much yapping and begging and too little classical music. And even a 3 disk indash changer is too high-maintenance.

Satellite? or an Ipod thru the cassette....my potential choices.
 
quote:

Originally posted by kenw:


Satellite? or an Ipod thru the cassette....my potential choices.


I think it boils down to whether you want to get streams of music of a various genre you like with no effort and no exact choices of what you are going to listen to, or whether you want complete control over what you listen to and want to put some effort into loading the music.

Hmmm, that sounds a bit anti-sat radio, but it wasn't meant that way. We have Sirius at home on Dish Network and like it. We are still stuck in the AM/FM/CD world in our cars...that's sooo 20th century.
grin.gif


Some reasonable blather on sat radio

My son went with sat radio (Sirius) despite haveing a massive music collection. Sat radio costs less than the price of a CD per month and he figured he would buy at least one less CD amonth if he had sat radio. Slightly tongue in cheek rationalization on his part, but an interesting way to look at it.
 
I have heard that if you are into talk radio one of them is better than the other. i don't remember which one. i think you need to look at which one has the programming and hardware that you like. i believe that the quality is the same with either.

my local stations are terrible also. two companies own all of the stations with the exception of NPR and the local college radio station.
 
traffic reports are useless here, and talk is why I want satellite or IPod!!! if it ain't music, i'm switching stations.
 
I have XM in one car, and Sirius in three others. Sirius has vastly better programming.
 
quote:

Originally posted by tom slick:
I have heard that if you are into talk radio one of them is better than the other. i don't remember which one. i think you need to look at which one has the programming and hardware that you like. i believe that the quality is the same with either.

my local stations are terrible also. two companies own all of the stations with the exception of NPR and the local college radio station.


You must have couple of religious stations too.
 
I have sirius in my car and am one of the first guys to get it new in 02'. A few of the sat only talk radio shows have cuss words in them like the Jay Thomas and the Mike Church show. The Mike Church show is like a mix between Glen Beck and Howard Stern, mixing politics with things guys like to do. When Sirius first came out they lied about commercail free music channels because every DJ on the two most popular channels, 1 and 9 always talked about what they watched and liked on HBO i.e. 24/7. Because you pay to subscribe to sat radio they can cuss all they want to on their programming unlike the FCC regulated free over the air programming, but the music doesnt have the foul language like it did when I first got it.
 
I rented a car with XM for the last week. Love the ability to hear Fox news, Channel 51's "jam bands", and the comedy channels.

XM is way cool.
 
quote:

Originally posted by GROUCHO MARX:
I listen to local traffic reports a lot. I can't help you with this one.

I know XM has a radio channel dedicated to the top 50 radio markets that are entirely traffic and weather. I have no doubt that New York would be included in these channels. Also don't think that the information is solely for the main city, I used to live in Sacramento (which does not have a dedicated channel) but still get weather and traffic reports while listing to the San Francisco channel.

I would agree that XM has a deeper play list. To me it seems like Sirius plays a lot of main stream songs, this is good if your having a party or listening to the service for the first time. But like local radio this gets old, when I listen to my favorite XM channels I love hearing my old favorites and discovering new ones that only the depth of XM's play list can provide.

I notice that most people who listen to XM the first time are not all that impressed, but after listening to it for a day or so they say that they really like the service.
 
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