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Sirius vs. XM or battle of the satelite radios


sludgebass69

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I bought XM because it has a quasi-indie Christian rock station.

 

I think it's country programming is a touch better, but not leaps and bounds better. I only think this because it has a true old country station, whereas Sirius mixes it with stuff from the 70's, and 80's.

 

I think Sirius has better rock stations. They're more logically divided than XM. XM also has some cool talk/info stations.

 

If you're into sports, check out their sports listings. For example, I can't get big 12 college football on XM, which kinda sucks. But oh, well.

 

I definately dig satellite radio of any flavor, though, since I live in places that have very poor programming.

 

Dustin

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i got Sirius at the first of this year... i love it.. mainly for metal and rap... Hardattack rulz..... m/ i enjoy it in my car, room and on da computer... jamming right now to it.. i forgot about my playlist when i got Sirius.. i love it... way betta than clear channel B.S. i would say Sirius,., do it, do it.,.

 

im a stock holder it will help me out.. :D

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XM is the radio without commercials. If you like the radio, get XM.

 

Sirius (for my tastes... I don't particularly like the radio) has better channels, deeper cuts, and better DJs for all types of music I like... Punk rock, classic rock, garage rock, metal, 80s hair rock, and old new wave.

 

{censored} Howard Stern. He's only on one station for a few hours a day, anyway.

 

--edit--

 

BTW, I get Sirius at home through Dish network and listen to it all the time.

 

The dude that sits across from me at work has XM and listens to it every day, though mostly to Fred & Ethel (the two modern rock stations), and it's not very good.

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Both of them offer free listening online for like three days. Listen to them and see what you think.

 

A few differences, having owned both at one point:

 

1. Sirius doesn't let you listen to all the stations online. Many of them are blacked out, including the comedy stations. XM plays all their stations online

 

2. XM ditched Liquid Metal, their extreme metal station, in the middle of the night and replaced it with a bunch of baseball stations. This was what caused me to switch to Sirius immediately. Not just the fact that they got rid of it, but the fact that they did it without informing anyone or anything. Not cool.

 

3. Sirius has lots of stations for different genres, but tends to play the same bands on different stations. XM doesn't have as many stations per genre (except probably rock), but it's rare to hear a band on more than one station. XM has a ton of rock stations, but a majority of them play pretty damn obscure stuff.

 

4. XM's main rock stations, IMO, are Squizz and the Boneyard. Squizz is pretty much like your regular rock radio, except without the older stuff (you won't hear Pink Floyd, Zeppelin, Metallica [for the most part... maybe once a month I've heard a Metallica song]). They do play old Pantera though. The Boneyard is all the hair/arena bands. They are lacking a really heavy metal station, but Squizz has The {censored}ing Metal Show on Wednesday nights.

 

5. Comedy 150 on XM was, in my opinion, a better station than the Sirius comedy station.

 

6. XM has Opie & Anthony; Sirius has Stern. Pick one. If you haven't heard O&A, like most people, tune in to the free radio stream that XM has on their site on a weekend, when they're doing a "Worst Of" show.

 

7. Sirius has Hard Attack, which plays way heavier stuff than Squizz typically does, but also includes older songs.

 

8. XM has baseball & NASCAR; Sirius has football. Ultimately that's what most people seem to base their decisions on anyway.

 

9. XM hardware completely blows away Sirius. If you're getting an in-dash that's satellite ready, this isn't as big of an issue... but it's a fact that the hardware has a huge technology gap. For example, XM has had its MyFi portable out for quite some time now; Sirius just released (or is about to release) theirs. The difference? The Sirius unit can't listen to the radio in realtime; it's got to pre-record everything. It's also much bulkier. XM's units are smaller, use less battery (for the portables), and just overall look better IMO.

 

10. The original deal-breaker for me: XM has the Unsigned station. Bands can send in their material and if it's of good enough quality, they'll play it. The upside is that you are always listening to brand new music. Unfortunately it usually sucks. And by "usually" I mean about 90% of the time.

 

If you really want to learn about each one, visit their forums. XM's is at www.xmfan.com; I don't remember the one for Sirius.

 

After using them both I ended up going with XM.

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Sirius has a channel called Sirius Distortion which alone is worth signing up! They play a wide variety of interesting music - both familiar and unknown. My wife and I have different tastes (she's a little bit country and I'm a jazz/funk/r&b guy) and we both love it. I have it courtesy of the Dish Network.

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Originally posted by nofret

Sirius has a channel called Sirius Distortion which alone is worth signing up! They play a wide variety of interesting music - both familiar and unknown. My wife and I have different tastes (she's a little bit country and I'm a jazz/funk/r&b guy) and we both love it. I have it courtesy of the Dish Network.

 

 

They also have The Underground Garage, which is my personal fav... It's a syndicated version of Little Steven's Underground Garage and it totally kicks ass.

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Wow, great info guys, thanks. I'm gonna check out the 3 day trials. I'm mostly interested in the music stations. I don't listen to much talk or sports radio, and I can't stand Stern.

 

I did notice the XM equipment looks a lot more up to date, or hi-tech I guess.

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Originally posted by sludgebass69

Wow, great info guys, thanks. I'm gonna check out the 3 day trials. I'm mostly interested in the music stations. I don't listen to much talk or sports radio, and I can't stand Stern.


I did notice the XM equipment looks a lot more up to date, or hi-tech I guess.

 

 

I have the My-Fi portable player, and it's pretty nice, if you care to know. Being able to use it at home, in the car and then as a portable is nice. However, be warned that I've found the reception to be quite poor if you're going to walk around with it while using headphones, like ipod style. It's great, however, if you record audio (up to 5 hours) and play it back later.

 

I've been fairly pleased with mine. I have a few reservations about the whole thing (mostly whether or not I use it enough to justify it), but it's great for having music everywhere.

 

Dustin

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Originally posted by melancholy mechanic



xm has better hardware but i suspect it's just a matter of time before sirius catches up.

 

 

I owned XM and sirius. XM toally blows the little doggie company away. Just look at some of the facts. XM is units are years ahead of sirius. They have recivers that are totalyy wieless and can record 6 hours worth of songs or whatever. The new one that will be out before Christmas will also be an mp3 player, so you can throw that crappy ipod away. Look at the stock prices, xm around $29 sirius around $11. Any company that would pay martha stewart 5 Million a year is insane. Paying Stern $500 million, how are they going to make up that money when the subscriber bass is a third of xm? If you think about it, it's pretty simple, commercials. The advertising revenues have to go up because the subscriber base isn't there. Pretty soon it will be just like regular radio. I would like to have the nfl games, but they overpaid for that also. I'd rather buy the nfl ticket and watch the games. Oh yea Opie and Anthony, Ron and Fez, nuff said!!! Later Joe

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Originally posted by kingbrutis



I owned XM and sirius. XM toally blows the little doggie company away. Just look at some of the facts. XM is units are years ahead of sirius. They have recivers that are totalyy wieless and can record 6 hours worth of songs or whatever. The new one that will be out before Christmas will also be an mp3 player, so you can throw that crappy ipod away. Look at the stock prices, xm around $29 sirius around $11. Any company that would pay martha stewart 5 Million a year is insane. Paying Stern $500 million, how are they going to make up that money when the subscriber bass is a third of xm? If you think about it, it's pretty simple, commercials. The advertising revenues have to go up because the subscriber base isn't there. Pretty soon it will be just like regular radio. I would like to have the nfl games, but they overpaid for that also. I'd rather buy the nfl ticket and watch the games. Oh yea Opie and Anthony, Ron and Fez, nuff said!!! Later Joe

 

 

...but the music is better on Sirius. Isn't that why you listen to the radio, anyway?

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