Satellite Radio: Sirius vs. XM

While I do think Wayne is right and you should do a search, I haven't thrown in my tid bit of advice in those threads because I wasn't here

My father and I both use XM radio and on long trips we've found it almost invaluable. It essentially never cut out (except when going underneath a bridge/through a tunnel), reconnected almost the moment you leave the bridge/tunnel and the programming is good. Lots of good programming choices for virtually every taste and very professional. And the comedy channel has a great list of acts and is always good for laughs.

For short trips it is essentially the same as a normal radio except that you won't have commercials when listening to music and you won't end up flipping through different stations because of the commercials.

That said, both XM and Sirius appear to be getting the rough end of the stick when it comes to legislation. Because of that I'd be tempted to go with XM simply because it has more listeners and is thus less likely to die out because of the FM and AM attack against satellite radio.

 

I'll weight in here too since I had sirius in my car for about a year and have probably put 20,000 miles under my wheels while listening to one stream or another - I mostly listen to the Rock (4-5 streams), Rap(4), News(10-12), and Comedy(2).

Basically what I noticed after a few weeks of listening is that they play mostly either what is on the radio and bad music (weird stuff revered by critics only because it's different than what the mainstream listens to). The musical flavors are distinctly east coast since every DJ they employ works in the same building in NYC, and if you don't switch around a lot it gets stagnant. On several occasions I found that the exact same song was playing on multiple streams - a sure sign they are running a pretty short rotation of mostly popular songs. If that's what you want, Sirius is flawless, but I wouldn't personally recommend it for someone trying to refine their musical pallet.

I crashed my SVT Focus, and will now be building a new system incorperating XM in my Sentra Spec-V. I am hoping the streams will be more diverse.

 

We've had XM in our Tahoe since purchasing it in June of this year. We listen to it all the time. Great to not have all of the commercials.

 

I've had both at one time or another (currently XM), and I much prefer XM's programming. XM's programming seems to be a bit more main stream, while Sirus tends to go for the content that you won't hear on regular FM (which is good if you are looking for more variety I suppose). I generally don't use the music stations that much, but always have the news stations (Bloomberg, Fox news, MSNBC, ESPN News) tuned in. Makes me feel like my commuting time isn't being totally wasted.

 

Absolutely will be.. I've had XM for several years now (bought a car, drove it from the dealership straight to audio shop to have XM installed)... I've also spent plenty of time in rental cars with Sirius. My impression of Sirius is that it's more like a couple kids streaming MP3's off their home computer compared to XM, which is more like a proper media giant with big acts, good dj's, huge selection, etc.

-R

 

Excellent - that is exactly what I wanted to hear.
Do you know if the DJs are nation-wide or all based in one location? Does XM carry howard stern?

 

I'm pretty sure that all of the DJs, along with the rest of operations is at their HQ in DC. I think they have some sort of studio in NYC, but I'm not sure how often its used.

XM doesn't have Stern, and there's a big question mark of where he's going to end up. XM recently signed Opie & Anthony, and some people think that the rivalry might make Stern go Sirius. Who knows.

I've been XMing since 3/02, and I can't live without it. Its lost a bit of its feel-good down home attitude, there used to be more DJs on for longer periods of time, and they've cut some really great niche stations, but its still better than listening to 26 minutes of commercials per hour, and some days I just have to get my Bluegrass fix.

 

As far as Stern goes.. no clue.. did he actually get taken off the air? You can still listen to regular AM/FM radio......

While I do have around 10 stations I like to listen to on XM, the one that stays on about 95% of the time is XM 80, The Move (techno, house, etc..) They have studios set up right in DC where local dj's play, but they also feed in shows from San Francisco, NY, etc.. They broadcast the Winter Music Conference live from Miami, and always bring in guest DJs from all over the world. They cover the whole range of proper electronic music, while the 3 or 4 'techno' stations on Sirius either had horrible tracks or junky no-name dj's playing crappy music. Not sure how the music you listen to would compare, but overall, XM had a much more professional feel to it, whatever that means...

I've also never had problems with reception. The most it will cut out for is half a second or so if I go through a long tunnel or under a bridge on a rainy day... And I have the antenna inside the car, so I'm not even getting the best reception.

-R