Which satelite radio service do you use? Why did you choose the one you have?

 

I would get Sirius if I was in the market. The thing I hate most about radio, besides the poor quality, is all the DAMN comercials. If your going to pay for it, I would go with the commercial free route.

 

Too bad neither is available in Canada.

 

Could we not purchase it in the States and just have it billed to a cc?

 

I am thinking of getting xm for the RX8. This post did not take off, does that mean no one else wants it?

 

Yeah, kind of like the RX-Evolv body kit. No reply means no one wants it.

 

I have XM in one of my boats. I went with it because my audio installer was offering a great deal on the antenna and adapter for my Alpine HU. My experiences at the river are that there is little to no reception and by the end of the day most people are tired of hearing the same 10-12 CD's. The commercial interuptions are very minimal compared to broadcast.

 

Ya know, I was thinking about this when you first posted it, and I wonder if you'd even get decent reception up thar... Of course, that depends on how close to the States you live and travel too.

---jps

 

If you look at a map you will notice that Southern Ontario is about parallel with Northern California.

 

I have XM. Love it! I never had a subscription to Sirius, so I have no personal experience to base an opinion or comparison to XM. People support Sirius because of their non commercial format. I don't mind. The commercials, on less than half of the 100 XM channels last about a minute or two per hour.

I listen to XM at home. I use the Delphi XM SkiFi receiver with it's home station adapter. Nice small receiver. I plan on getting the car adapter & installing it in the RX-8. When I want to listen to the satellite when I'm travel in the car, I'll just take the receiver and plug it into the car unit. Saves me from having multiple subscriptions.

It's only a matter of time that Mazda will have a satellite installed receiver in the RX-8 as standard or factory option. It will receive the Sirius, since Sirius has a partnership with Ford/Mazda.

 

First off don't take it that I'm putting down XM, just giving the reasons that I decided to go with Sirius.

1. With 3 moving Sats you get better straight down reception. I've gone up and down canyons and perfect uninterupted service. XM'x sats are south of the US and makes it so the signal comes in at an angle so if you aren't in a city with ground repeaters then you will have problems with your reception.

2. I don't have a long drive to work like some. That being the reason some get the service. I don't like driving and half my drive being commercials (nor any of it).

3. I know, I know everyone reads Playboy for the articles but I don't need to have the option to be able to pay an extra $2.99 a month to HEAR playboy stuff. :D

4. Sirius seems to be better in with the sports. They play the NBA, MLB, and Racing stuff.

5. Since I will still have my 90 Miata when I get my RX-8, Sirius offers a discount on mutliple active radios.

In closing I've been with Sirius since day 1 that I could set it up, and I've never been disappointed. I want to find someone that has XM and drive up the same canyons that I have gone up to compare the signal loss to mine (since I have none).

 

Never actually owned either. Heard good things about XM though.
I do like the idea of no commercials though. Guess its just
personal preference :p .

 

JMoore,

I have XM, and the hype of Sirius being superior and the XM inferior because of no commercials is overblown. Almost half of the XM music channels have no commericals. On the other music channels, the extent of the commercials is about 2-3 minutes per hour - usually all at once. After that you have a good 55+ minutes of music. Or, you have a quick identifier, i.e. "You are listening to XM20, Top 20 on 20".

The major extent of the commercials are on the talk channels, which I don't mind at all. People don't usually record those.

Check out the xmradio.com web site, and you can see a detailed program listing. It will tell you what channels have commercials.

Both systems sound great. You won't be able to hear the differences in sound quality.

The prime reason I chose XM, was because of the Delphi SkyFi system. It was not available for Sirius when I bought it. It's a compact, palm-size, reciever purchased with either a home base adapter or a car adapter. You just move the receiver back and forth - plug and play. Keeps me from paying for multiple subscriptions. I never listen to the radio at home anymore. It's satellite all the time on my home stereo since I picked up the unit over 6 months ago.

Plus, I liked the channel lineup better with XM. I also liked the idea that XM seemed to be in negotiations with Direct TV, the satellite TV provider to broadcast some of it's programming, ie. NFL game ticket, and the other sports packages.

You are right about personal preference. Depending on which programming you like best, will be the main basis of which system you choose.

Both the XM & Sirius systems are great. No matter which system, someone may choose, satellite definately tops broadcast radio anyday.

 

The crap about no commercials on sirius is false advertising. I put sirius in my malibu 'cause the equipment was free. Go through a heavily wooded patch, kiss your digital streams goodbye. Go behind a hill, kiss your digital streams goodbye. Listen for more than 20 minutes on any stream, and you're certain to hear at least 5 minutes of advertising for other friggin streams. Sorry, but when I'm tuned in to trance, I don't need 5 minutes of goddamn country as an advertisement to make me change channels. For goodness sake, I'm already paying my $15/mo, leave me the f*** alone. The head unit in my 7 is XM ready, so maybe I'll try it in that car and do a comparison. Now I am in Washington State, so maybe the sasquatch farts are blocking the signals in the woods.It seems to me that they'll have to chose a wavelength other than microwave if they want to succeed. The damn signals are too picky. Oh yeah, forgot two: Drive behind a building, and kiss your digital streams good bye. Drive under the cover of a gas station (who hasn't cranked the tunes with windows down while fueling up) and kiss that digital signal goodbye.

 

Had XM in my Protege 5 all last summer and in the house - both worked great.

Only dropout in the car when surrounded by twenty+ floor buildings in the downtown core (Ottawa).

RX-8 installation pending arrival of NAV tray for dash.

 

I ended up with the XM Commander in my RX-8 because its display unit is small enough to fit in the ashtray even with the ashtray lid closed (as detailed elsewhere in this forum). I just had to trim a thin piece of plastic and the XM display simply rests in the ashtray on a blob of black silicon (clear silicon would have worked too because the blob isn't visible by driver or passenger). The installation was easy and looks very professional.

I also like the XM Commander feature that enables a user to press and hold the "enter" button whenever a favorite song plays. Once entered, whenever the song plays on ANY station, the unit beeps and I just have to press enter again to switch directly to the channel/song. I think you can store ~15 songs titles this way.

If size didn't matter, I would have chosen the Sirius radio service because the Sirius web site makes it appear as though Sirius subscribers have the option of listening to all content via real time web streaming on their computers. Not just for demo either. Can any Sirius customer confirm or deny this capability?

 

The web stream bit is true.

 

I never thought a Sat radio was worth it IMO, but that is because I dont drive enough to listen to the radio for long periods of time (like getting cable or SAT Tv when you are only home 5hrs a day). My question is why do you want to pay a monthly subscription for music? Why not just get a MP3 player and put the music you want to hear on it?
Just curious.

 

My wife has XM and i have SIRIUS. There are streams on XM that I prefer over SIRIUS and streams on SIRIUS that I prefer over XM. It is true that you will lose some transmission on SIRIUS in heavily wooded areas or areas with tree overhangs, but XM also looses its transmissions in cities with tall buildings. I chose SIRIUS because of the commercial free programming. Unlike the JC Penney ads that one hears on XM. To each his/her own. However tey both beat FM radio anyday of the week. I also can listen to the streams on my PC @ home. My wife was working on the PC today and I pulled up SIRIUS so she could listen while she worked. She now wants my sign on and password so she can listen while she is @ her office.