Members no-logic Posted January 16, 2010 Members Share Posted January 16, 2010 I'm thinking about going to satellite radio. I don't know the first thing about it. Give me some pro's and con's please. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members melancholy mechanic Posted January 16, 2010 Members Share Posted January 16, 2010 Pro's - the music channels are free from ads. you get the benefit of being exposed to music that you might otherwise not encounter.lots of variety. sports coverage. don't have to chase stations if you're traveling long distances. Con's -not free.compressed - your iPod will sound better.talk channels have ads. I had Sirius for 4 or 5 years and loved it! As I got nicer car stereos, I discovered that the compression compromised the sound more than I was willing to accept and it was eventually replaced with an iPod. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members left left goose Posted January 16, 2010 Members Share Posted January 16, 2010 Pro's - the music channels are free from ads. you get the benefit of being exposed to music that you might otherwise not encounter.lots of variety. sports coverage. don't have to chase stations if you're traveling long distances.Con's -not free.compressed - your iPod will sound better.talk channels have ads.I had Sirius for 4 or 5 years and loved it! As I got nicer car stereos, I discovered that the compression compromised the sound more than I was willing to accept and it was eventually replaced with an iPod. +1After listening to Sirius/XM for a year during the merger I did this as well. For me there were no channels that fit my style. The tolerable ones got phased out with the merger and I just lost intrest the last few weeks. I will say its better than FM radio though. Get a nice Belkin or Sony Bluetooth stereo face with an AUX jack and put your ipod on random. Also with the Bluetooth I can use my Blackberry which has Pandora which is REALLY cool feature. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Westsailor Posted January 17, 2010 Members Share Posted January 17, 2010 One more con: After about a month you figure out it's just a big loop Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members HackedByChinese! Posted January 17, 2010 Members Share Posted January 17, 2010 The sound quality is worse than even FM radio and you will hear a lot of compression artifacts, which completely spoils any programming benefits the service might have. Not worth it, IMO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members groutt Posted January 17, 2010 Members Share Posted January 17, 2010 This is just my own personal grumpy opinion. When I started with XM a few years ago, there was a station called Music Lab (tag lines: For musicians only. & You've been warned, so don't complain.) I loved that station. Discovered a lot of really interesting music. Deep playlists. Then it went away. Bastards! So then there was Beyond Jazz (that was pretty good) & Fine Tuning (absolutely any type of music). Gone and gone. And Deep Tracks doesn't seem as deep as it used to be. Nothing seems deep any more. There were several radio theatre channels, but now it's just a single "vintage radio" channel. They took away Music Lab, but there is a Bruce Springstein 24/7 channel? Screw XM. My subscription is up soon and I'm done with 'em. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members B-Bottom Posted January 17, 2010 Members Share Posted January 17, 2010 We have Sirrus at work and I dig it. We mostly listen to Outlaw country which {censored}ing rules. I plan on getting satellite just for that station. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ezstep Posted January 17, 2010 Members Share Posted January 17, 2010 Sound quality ^^^ What they said. Not even stereo from what I can tell (mono on several channels). However, my daughter lives in Colorado and we visit often. XM is the only station we can pick up consistently. Nothing FM, nothing AM. Have a good, strong signal? Make a turn around a mountain and lose it for fifteen minutes. We'll stick to XM. I also carry my Slacker whenever I travel. Listen all day, refresh songs via WiFi at night when recharging. Much better sound quality, too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members willsellout Posted January 17, 2010 Members Share Posted January 17, 2010 It's not bad but surprisingly you don't get service everwhere. Mountains are iffy as is 60 miles out on the ocean:D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rpsands Posted January 17, 2010 Members Share Posted January 17, 2010 With Pandora and Slacker Radio I doubt I will ever go with Satellite. I'll just use my normal selection of MP3s if I'm road tripping. I had Sirius for a year and it was pretty easy to give it up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blueyedmule Posted January 17, 2010 Members Share Posted January 17, 2010 I've got XM because, as a truck driver who runs in very rural areas, I like to still have something to listen to. I get sick of surfing and surfing and surfing for channels of AM or FM. For me, Boneyard works fine for music most of the time, though I do get tired of the playlist at times. I also use Hair Nation (though not for very long stretches of time) and Classic Rewind(ditto), and at times get hooked by Willie Nelson's channel that runs the kind of country my dad grew up on. I don't always have a truck with an auxiliary input, so using my mp3 player through the truck's audio isn't always an option. There are a few political channels that I sometimes listen to, depending on who's on--but I get sick of the ads which run as dense as AM radio. There is also a particular Catholic station I sometimes like. Other times, it can put me to sleep. Truckers don't need sleepy radio! If you use the stock antennae, heavy rain or snow may cause interference. You can buy a fancier one for about a hundred bucks but it will look funny on your Honda Civic. It's meant to mirror-mount on semis and gets much better reception. What's the Slacker and Pandora all 'boot?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members z1221 Posted January 17, 2010 Members Share Posted January 17, 2010 What's the Slacker and Pandora all 'boot?? Go to Pandora.com and find out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blueyedmule Posted January 17, 2010 Members Share Posted January 17, 2010 Go to Pandora.com and find out. Did so, now I'm in da know! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members chunky-b Posted January 17, 2010 Members Share Posted January 17, 2010 I just decommisioned my Delphi SkiFi receiver with home and car kit. I loved xm for the first couple of years but as my iPod library grew, I just quit using it. And they raised the fees. So I just turned it off since I wasn't using it. Wondering if I should sell the gear of offer it in the gear swap thread. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blueyedmule Posted January 17, 2010 Members Share Posted January 17, 2010 I just decommisioned my Delphi SkiFi receiver with home and car kit. I loved xm for the first couple of years but as my iPod library grew, I just quit using it. And they raised the fees. So I just turned it off since I wasn't using it. Wondering if I should sell the gear of offer it in the gear swap thread. Sell/swap would be a good idea if it's not gettin' any love at your place. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Westsailor Posted January 17, 2010 Members Share Posted January 17, 2010 It's not bad but surprisingly you don't get service everwhere. Mountains are iffy as is 60 miles out on the ocean:D Actually, we can pick Sirius up down here in Central America. Not supposed to but we do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members LanEvo Posted January 17, 2010 Members Share Posted January 17, 2010 I do a ton of long-distance driving and I generally like to listen to talk radio when I do so. For me, Sirius was a life-saver. I love it and can't imagine heading out on a long drive without it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Bassfart~ Posted January 17, 2010 Members Share Posted January 17, 2010 Go to Pandora.com and find out. My own discovery of Pandora was a godsend. It's solely responsible for saving me from a severe case of musical burnout. I had literally hit the "what do I want to listen to" brick wall... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members i_wanna_les_paul Posted January 17, 2010 Members Share Posted January 17, 2010 I do a ton of long-distance driving and I generally like to listen to talk radio when I do so. For me, Sirius was a life-saver. I love it and can't imagine heading out on a long drive without it. This is what I loved about satellite radio - long drives. Especially headed home through Wyoming. That, and there's tons of music on Sirius/XM that you just don't get outside of major metro areas, IMO. But then again, I'm known to like crappy music, so my standards are probably well below the forum's average. Unfortunately, my trial subscription ran out in my car, and since it's not mine, I didn't renew it. Now, if Slacker would let other smartphones (other than Blackberry) do the caching music thing, I'd have no more lust for satellite radio. $.02 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members johnkline Posted January 17, 2010 Members Share Posted January 17, 2010 My mother in-law was a big fan of xm. She recently passed and I have all this xm gear I'm not going to use. My company car has xm built in so I don't need it. I love the comedy channels! I think I have a pioneer xmp3, it's portable and with the home and car kit. Umm she also had a boombox with skyfi to listen at home. I'll go list it or pm me if anyones interested... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Phantasm Posted January 17, 2010 Members Share Posted January 17, 2010 Howard Stern is worth the price of admission alone. If you stream online, you can stream in CD quality - but this costs $2.99 extra per month. In fact, if you just want to try Sirius, you can get an internet-only subscription and just cancel it if you don't like it. I believe there's a free trial period if you will have time to sit down and listen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Zeromus-X Posted January 17, 2010 Members Share Posted January 17, 2010 Slacker is free after you buy the unit, and has a massive playlist (at least when compared to XM). I dropped XM/Sirius after I lost almost every station I liked to listen to. The free Slacker subscription only gives you 6 song skips per hour, but that's 6 more than I got with XM, and changing the station is effectively a song skip anyway. I paid $79 for my 8-gig Slacker on Woot and haven't regretted it once. Better sound quality, bigger song selection, and it "learns" what I like, just like Pandora. I don't get live DJs but I really don't care. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ezstep Posted January 17, 2010 Members Share Posted January 17, 2010 Did so, now I'm in da know! Now, think Pandora that you can take with you. That would be Slacker. Portable mp3 device that you download whenever, either through computer or WiFi in motels. You don't worry about reception because you aren't "receiving," simply playing back. 5-6 skips per hour per channel. Up to 40 channels, though I have only six channels for about nine months now. Like Pandora, you can "save" songs permanently or you can "ban" songs permanently. You have to refresh your songs every 30 days, but you can do it almost daily through WiFi. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Roger in the sky Posted January 17, 2010 Members Share Posted January 17, 2010 Now, think Pandora that you can take with you. That would be Slacker. Portable mp3 device that you download whenever, either through computer or WiFi in motels. You don't worry about reception because you aren't "receiving," simply playing back. 5-6 skips per hour per channel. Up to 40 channels, though I have only six channels for about nine months now. Like Pandora, you can "save" songs permanently or you can "ban" songs permanently. You have to refresh your songs every 30 days, but you can do it almost daily through WiFi. i read recently that slacker is not going to produce devices anymore and putting their focus entirely on being the content provider. mainly due to all of the smartphones out there that can be used instead. both slacker and pandora have apps for iphone/android/etc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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