XM or Sirius?

M

MusicCityHorn77

< 25 Posts
I'm looking to have one of these installed on my girlfriend's car, but I am completely ignorant to both products so I have a few questions for some of you.

1. Which is better?

2. What should I expect to pay for the receiver,installation,etc?

3. We live in Nashville. Will she be able to get any Dallas or Austin channels?

Thanks a bunch.
 
I absolutely love Sirius. From What ive heard its has alot better music stations.

Check Crutchfield.com for some reciever set ups.

As to no. 3; it doesnt work like that. Sirius and XM have their own studios which produce unique content. So the entire U.S. recieves the same stations.
 
Since I installed my XM receiver in my truck, I haven't listend to FM and it has been since last Christmas. I really like it, but I have heard good things about Sirius as well. The thing I like about my Delphi SkyFi unit is that I can pop it in my truck, take it inside with me and pop it in the cradle on my home receiver, and when I'm at work, I can pop it in my "boom box." I don't know if Sirius offers something similar. Otherwise, you would have to have a separate unit for home, auto, and work and that would mean having 3 separate subcriptions, that run $10 a month each. I don't think you can go wrong either way, depending upon your musical tastes, but they both have a wide array of choices. Sirius has NFL sports coverage, though, while XM has ESPN and FoxSports.
 
I have and love Sirius. I have a kenwood something or other that is almost like CAD's. It has a car and home cradle, no accompanying boombox though because at the time there wasn't one at the time. There is now though, just dno't know what its called. You can go to Sirius.com to get a complete list of their receivers.
 
I bought a lot of stock in XM so I urge you to purchase it. I've had mine for a couple of months now and I love it. Great variety of stations, music, sports, etc. I don't know much about Sirius, but if ESPN and Fox Sports are exclusive to XM, I'd say the choice is pretty clear. I know XM is making a big push to get college football, which would be a nice addition. The only channel that Sirius has that XM doesn't, to my knowledge, is a jam band channel. If this isn't your knid of music, then I don't think there's a big difference in selection.

I do know that XM's stock is beating the hell out of Sirius, so if you want a company that'll be around in a few years I'd get XM. (and tell your friends so I can make some more money
wink.gif
)
 
My wife has an XM and I just picked up a Sirius, so I know a little about both. It is all in what you want with the radio. I only picked up the Sirius, for NFL. They are the basically the same, except for a couple of channels. If the NFL is important to you get the Sirius, if not you cannot go wrong with either.
 
Thanks for the recommendations and information. I'm kind of leaning towards Sirius because of the NFL stuff(she's a huge Cowboys fan.) Anyway, thanks again for all the help. I'm sure she'll be happy with either choice.
 
Sirius-NFL Sunday Ticket

XM-Pac 10 and ACC football/basketball, Opie and Anthony, Playboy Radio

Music's probably about the same.
 
As pointed out before . . .

Pay extra for a portable unit. I bought a non-portable unit that I can only listen to in my vehicle. If I had just spent a little more, I could also be listening to it in my home and at work.

Damn, I'm cheap.
 
XM is not owned by Clear Channel. They are an investor, and thats it. They don't have enough ownership to run the company.

Does NFL coverage really matter that much? I suppose if you are normally in your car on Sundays, its cool, but most people are close to a TV. It thats the case, I would rather pay the extra to buy the NFL package on DirecTv. DirecTv is actually the largest shareholder in XM.
 
What is the difference in price between the two, to buy the units and the monthly charges? How much is the portable XM radio? Yeah, unless you're a trucker, the NFL games shouldn't be that important. That's what DirecTV and the NFL sunday ticket is for. Best sports package available today-hands down.
 
I've had XM in my car and home for a couple of years now- however, they have no station that compares to Sirius' First Wave- which is basically all the late 70's/ 80's alt hits. Genius playlist. I will give XM props on X Country. Very good alt. country station and their live concert station.

My advice would be to go w/ XM- if you want an easy install- look at the 'permanent' pioneer car unit (have it my Tahoe)- which whould run you &#60; $2 bills installed at Circuit City. As other posters have said- you can go w/ a Delphi/ Audiovox type unit that you can use in car/ home. I just bought both (car/ home) so I wouldn't have to screw with moving them. Definitely kicks am/fm's arses (except for the Ticket in Dallas).
 
Just got an XM Roadie2

the thing is tiny compared to the Sirius recievers.

it cost $122.99 at best buy and it has a home kit as a rebate.

XM is $9.98 a month for the first reciever and $6.98 for each of up to 4 more recievers.

Installation?

With Roadie2 you plug in the tiny antenna, and power and hook it to an AC vent and tune your FM radio to an unused frequency and tune the built in Roadie FM modulator to the same freq and off you go. Took about 15 minutes after I signed up on the internet for it to start working.

Or you can use the cassette adaptor or wire it directly into your stereo.

The really nice thing is that Delphi is coming out with a holder that allows you to take it with you jogging or walking or biking or whatever like a walkman.

I could care less about the NFL, what I care about is College football and XM seems to be going after that and have signed up ACC and Pac 10. Why the idoits at Big 12 haven't gotten on this I don't know. They are going to be doing basketball too.

And there ARE city specific channels on XM, they broadcast weather and traffic and I found them very useful when driving from Miami to Orlando during Hurricane Charley.


And I don't understand the hatin on Clear Channel, maybe you don't like the fact that Clear Channel is carrying the extremely liberal Air America network on some of its stations?

Could it be Al Frankenaphobia that is causing your CChatin?
 
and my XM roadie2 will scroll up to 20 stock quotes for you stock junkies, they are 20 minutes behind though.

one of delphi's new XM recievers will allow you to buffer 30 minutes of music.

And I saw some of the roadie 1 units (no built in fm modulator) for $70.00 at Wal-mart.

----

Toyota has XM also, I will be getting it in my Scion XB when I buy it.

and you can get weather radar over XM. It's a little pricey though unless you are a pilot and use it in your airplane.

-------
 
I get what you're trying to say but it just seems that you veiw CC as running the show over at XM, which is not the case. If people didn't use every product that is owned or associated with a company they dislike you'd be living in a different world. I bought XM a while ago when it came out and there was no sirius (yet, even though it was the first of the two it started after. If I didn't have coupons that let me get it for $30 total, I probably wouldn't have. Also I'd switch to Sirius if it didn't cost me a $100 to get the equ. because I have noticed that they seem to be the only one out of the two to bring in new ideas and programming within the last 6 months. In the future one will probaly die but no telling which one.
 
Used both... The selection is basically the same when it comes to music... The kicker for me was Sirius getting the NFL rights and already having the NHL rights. ESPN Radio is nice, and they are also the leading candidate to pick up MLB exclusivity.

While having the NFL is nice, having MLB is drool worthy.
 
MLB would be a good reason to pick one over the other. The other killer reason to pick one over the other is Longhorn Sports. or why not get both, $13 for Sirius and $10 for XM? less than $25 for both? cheap at twice the price.

I can see the side of hatin on CC, after all they do beam controlling rays at your brain, first from towers on the ground and now from space, that's why I always wear my tinfoil helmet to ward them rays off.

Other trivia,

XM's got a Frank Sinatra channel, Sirius got a Elvis channel.
 
With both systems you have to buy a satalite reciever in addtion to the antanae and controller (unless you get the new Alpine that has the XM reciever buit in at about $450). To me the choice was clear: Sirius reciever: $50, XM reciever: $170. New Kenwood Excelon (with 22 watts RMS and 24 bit Codecs), Sirius reciever and antanae: $320. It took about an hour to install the whole set up.

I do have a question tho: is it supposed to sound like streaming internet audio or is supposed to sound closer to CD?
 
wow the XM vs Sirus flamewars are in full swing it was bound to happen I guess, If I ever get any it would probably be Sirus if they don't have any ads, if I pay for something it better be freaking ad free or much much cheaper.
 
The quality of the broadcasts is very similar to CD quality sound. It's all digital and whatever static you are getting is likely to be from either noise introduced by the engine (alternator), or most likely your FM modulator (which sucks in sound quality anyways) is trying to compete with some other FM broadcast.

If you can, buy an auxillary input for your head unit. They make them for factory equipment (BMW, Mini, Lexus, Mazda, Chrysler, and so on) and you use the mini plug output from your receiver to go directly into a line-in input on your head unit, losing virtually nothing in terms of quality. Otherwise you're stuck with a FM modulator that has to compete against outside FM signals and can only be as good as a good FM broadcast.
pukey.gif


Sadly, I'm modulating in my car, but it's only because AUX inputs are still in their developmental stage, and the head unit cannot be replaced either as of this time (not to mention it would look like ****). Even with modulation though, and being in Houston (a big *** market with airwaves that are crammed full), it's still pretty decent quality and the programming kills FM.

As for commercials, XM and Sirius both have commericals on their non-music channels. The music channels of both are free from the commercial crap that dominates FM.

Content is pretty good music wise on both (my wife has Sirius and I run XM), but Sirius has better classic rock stations. My only consolation is that XM has better "deep tracks" which is stuff that you wouldn't consider mainstream. When it comes to sports, Sirius beats down XM with a shovel. Longhorns, NFL, NBA, and other GOOD college FB teams are all on Sirius - only the garbage ACC / Big 10 / PAC-10 are on XM.

When it comes to hardware though, XM is better in terms of size and look, but my wife's Sirius Sportster has much better menus and browsing functions. Not to mention that the Sirius models scroll the text (why my Roady2 doesn't, I don't know - it's actually pretty irritat...) One other thing is that XM's antennas are smaller and the ground repeaters that XM uses are more powerful than Sirius's - this helps if your antenna can't see the satellites due to overhead obstruction (like trees or a parking garage).

Long post short, XM = better hardware in terms of installation, but if you can install a Sirius receiver and have it look clean, the hands down winner to me is Sirius for every other concievable reason.
 
I never said XM is better than Sirius. I'm simply saying that if you're going to hate XM so vehemently, you should try actually knowing a thing or two about it. Most people don't offer advice on something they're ignorant about, you should do the same. The equipment is like $150. If you can suffer buyer's remorse over that, you should stick to AM/FM.
 
I have XM and there is a definite loss of sound quality vs a CD. Because of it, I rarely listen to music with it. I do listen to talk a lot though.

I may notice the difference more than others because I have a significantly upgraded aftermarket sound system though.
 
if you have dish network you already get the sirius music chanels. i checked them out on there, loved em' and added the service for my car, definitly worth it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Weekly Prediction Contest

* Predict HORNS-AGGIES *
Sat, Nov 30 • 6:30 PM on ABC

Recent Threads

Prediction Results Threads

2024 Schedules

Back
Top