well now that stern has moved i need to get Sirius i have put it off long enough...


anhow i was at their site and they have a TON of recievers... which ones are good?

that one they have that you can set up to record would be cool then i can hear the whole show...(not sure of the model though)

anyhow it will be use back and forth between my home theater and the truck.. so which one do you guys like?

 

ill be looking in the next couple weeks as well. i've held off till he's gone as well, lol. i went to best buy last night.. but they didnt have anything left! so.. i didnt get too far.. im gonna try a few other places over the next week or so. hopefully people on here can recommend a reciever to get.

 

I have the sportster replay. I love it, as I am in and out of the work truck all day, and I can pause it to listen where I left off (and then fastforward thru the crap)

 

I used to have the receiver that you could remove and take in the house and it worked great, used it for over a year. My dad still has the same one that I had and has the home docking station and it works well. I now have the receiver that plugs right into a pioneer radio and it rocks. Any of them would be good to go, check out circuit city and stuff for reviews from customers.

 

I have the sportster and the sportster replay. I would recomend either one of those units. The replay more because of it's ability to rewind if you miss something.

I know people that have other sirius units and like them, but they seem to like mine better. Looks good and is easy to use.



Vic

 

is the reply the one that you can set up to record stuff and listen later?
like tivo for sat.radio

 

if you are not to worried about price wise look into alpines new head units the are both sirous and xm capable

 

I have the sportster great unit for car and has a home dock.
i belive their is a $50.00 rebate you can down load this month

 

i have the replay and i love it but no its not the one that can record. you can pick songs/games that will alert you when they come on and you can rewind up to 40mins. i didnt think that they had one out yet you could record on.


edit: unless this is what your talking bout





*Portable; take your favorite Sirius content wherever you go


*USB interface allows user to store and manage MP3 files


*My Sirius Channels feature gathers and refreshes your 3 most listened-to channels


*My Sirius Songs feature allows you to save your favorite songs or shows


*Scheduled Record feature allows you to record your favorite show at the same time every day


*My Playlists feature allows you to supplement Sirius content with your own personal library when attached through the home dock to a PC


*Voice-assisted navigation

*Executive, car and home docks available to expand your listening options (not included)


*Sirius Satellite Radio subscription required

all the info i could find on it.

 

wait til the s50 comes out itll be out by xmas and have a price tag of 300 bucks well worth it

 

Whatever you do, get a plug & play (PnP) or a portable model. Do not get one that is permanantly installed in the truck. I have an early Kenwood receiver that intergrates w/ my head unit. The receiver sits under my passenger seat. You obviously not remove it from the vehicle. Since Sirius is a per-receiver subscription (not per user), it sucks as I can only have Sirius in the truck.

We got my GF an Audiovox PNP3. This is exactly like the Sportster/Replay.. but w/o the replay feature or some of the advanced dedicated sports features. It's fantastic. Best of all it was affordable. I think I paid $50 for the receiver and $25 for the car kit.. then another $50 for the home kit. Of course I think the PNP3 is now discontinued.. and that may be why I got such a great price on it. But the reciever is awesome.

Personally I wouldn't get too held up on the 'tivo' like memory features. But then I have zero interest in radio shows. I just wanted music anywhere, any time, any type.

..W/ that said, I recently canceled my personal Sirius subscription after two years. I still have my GF's subscription (which was a gift), but I canceled my account and unplugged my receiver. Why? Because I think Sirius quite possibly has the WORST customer support I've ever experienced in my life! I loath their policies and think they generally suck. At this point I'm just turned off to the concept of pay satellite radio overall.

A few months back we activated my GF's new receiver. While I was at it I asked if they could set my receiver up to be terminated. I was on the 1-year plan.. which means you pay up front for the entire year. Well they automatically renew w/o asking you each year. So surprise! One day you get a ~$145 charge on your CC. I expected some sort of notification, either by mail or at least by email. Nothing. So this time I asked three or four times as clearly as I could to make sure the account would not be renewed.. Sure enough, a month later I've got a $145 charge on my CC. I was bull****! I called their pathetic support and for the first time since I've been involved w/ Sirius I got someone capable of speaking english! I explained my problem and insisted that they immediately refund my CC. She said no problem.. but I'm responsible for a $75 cancelation fee! I blew another gasket and insisted that they immediately refund my money. They said they had NO record of my previous conversation.. Shocking!

After a bit of arguing I finally got out of the cancelation fee.. but they did charge me ~$6-8 for the period I had already 'used' since my renewal date. When I protested that-reminding them that this was a result of THEIR mistake-I was threatened w/ the $75 fee. I believe her words were "Look buddy, I can charge you the cancelation fee if you'd rather, I'm doing you a favor here!" Gotta say, not a fan of being threatened by support staff.

At that point I asked for my GF's account to be scheduled to be turned off next year. I followed this up w/ a letter delivered by certified mail. I'll be damned if this will happen again!

Unfortunately my girl is really liking Sirius.. so we may have to do something about that (renew) next year. We'll cross that bridge when we get to it though.

Fawkers!

 

colin.... go XM.

Great customer support.

My girl loves it, and i love it!

im listning to it right now from the internet.

 

Great topic as I have been looking at XM & Sirius. My mom has XM in her Chevy Avalanche and I had Sirius with Dish Network. Sirius has Mojo Nixon - an old friend of mine - being really the one reason I want it.

 

I should give their demo a shot. If I end up moving (and I probably will do so next summer, or sooner) and have a longer commute, satellite would be nice. W/ my very short commute it just didn't make sense, especially since I only had it in the truck. Like I said, those PnP devices are slick. Nice to have it in the house too.

Although it means another setup fee.. another equipment investment.. another full-price account. I dunno, just so turned off to the whole concept right now.

The music was great though, when I had it. Like I said, GF loves her set. She's a Big 80's addict. Freakin' awesome channel. Their (Sirius') Jazz streams were top notch. Great audio quality too. And there was a ton of diversity in the classic rock streams. (I mean what could possibly be better than Hair Nation?! What a freakin' concept!) I could have dealt w/ another Blues stream. They mix contemporary (which I like) and ancient (not so much) blues on one stream. Two would probably be called for.

I'm not much for the talk crap. I did listen to the right and left-wing channels once just for the novelty. It was.. just as I'd expect, polarized political bibble-babble. Worse than some of us going on and on on this site!

Country wasn't so good though. Audio quality and varriety were both poor. And I didn't hear much 'new' stuff, even on their 'new country' stream. My regional FM station is 100x better, despite the ads.

And don't kid yourself: Sirius is NOT commercial free! They advertise for THEMSELVES CONSTANTLY! It's one of my pet peevs. I would really like 100%.. and I mean true, 100% music. No DJ, nobody inviting me to call or email, no chit chat about what the latest low-life celeberty is doing, and no editorials on New York drivers. (Sirius' offices are in NYC. The DJ's often babble about things going on in NYC.. do they really think the rest of the country gives a crap?!)

Although I can still listen on the web. I pay the tab for GF, so I have the login to their site. I could probably even listen while she is (w/ her set). I should.. and get even w/ the fawkers!

 

To be completly honest about the two of them. I work for GM and get to drive new vehicles every couple weeks that have XM and I hardly listen to it becuase I dont care for the programming.

As soon as I get back in my truck I dont listen to FM or a CD, strictly Sirius. The programming to me is much better then XM.

In the end it is up to you but it seems like you wanted Sirius to begin with as that is what you were asking about.

 

xm is garbage i believe their subscriber rate is dipping a little and sirius is shooting with the coming of stern

 

I heard that XM was kicking *** in terms of subscriber base.. but then I heard that was partly because they were counting every GM vechicle that had XM installed in it.. and not even those sold, they even counted those vehicles delivered to dealer stock.

 

I started with XM Radio, then I heard alot of people talking about Sirius Radio. So I switched over to them. I have to say that my personal opinion is that Sirius Radio is better than XM. Sirius has a better channel lineup and there customer service is outstanding compared to XM. Also Sirius cuts out lesser times than XM did.


Vic

 

colin. you can get the roady for 50 bucks. everything you need.

ive bought 2 so far.

Cool thing is, one of my co workers, won a handheld Delphi XM unit. 250 in value

im getting it for like 75 bucks!!!

 

Oh yea Thomas well Radio shack had a deal on a Sirius reciever for $50 and then 20 rebate about a month ago. Not sure if it is still on.

http://www.radioshack.com/product/in...entPage=search

 

I've got the clarion calypso... They are right around $50 plus another 50 or so for the car kit. I absolutely love it!!! Once you have sirius, you will never go back to FM again, trust me!! One thing that I have found though is if you live somewhere there is alot of FM stations these PnP models tend to get a ton of interference. I added on a FM modulator, which to me gives me nice sound quality, with no interference whatsoever.... SIRIUS ROCKS!!!!

 

hey butch did the external modulater make a difference?

my roady has the built in FM modulator, and i get crapy signal some times.

 

A) That's $50 more than I have to spend on crap like this. (I really could use a frickin' RAISE!)

B) I'm picky about what I attach to my dash, and the roady just doesn't do it for me.

This is the Audiovox unit we put in my GF's Mazda3. I freakin' love the interface..



I'm just going to sit out on the whole satelite radio thing for a year or so. The customer support issues are so bad that it's just turned me off..

 

Wow! Either XM's support really sucks, or you were dealing w/ a different Sirius than I was. Their phone support was AWEFUL. And they definitely try to deter you from calling. Just finding the support number was a PIA! But I digress..

As for the reception issue, I actually believe that. Sirius uses three satellites that are in constant motion. XM's are in geocsync orbit over the equator. The end result is that w/ both services you have at least two satellites overhead. But w/ XM they are very low in the southern sky.

Also XM had a problem w/ one of their satellites early on. So they had to partially shut it down and launch their third, backup satellite earlier than expected. Although the coverage is supposedly exactly as it was originally scheduled to be.

Still, I am willing to believe that the Sirius reception is, on average, just a bit better than XM.

 

When I had XM, I hated calling customer service. I was always put on hold, or they would say that they would fix my problem and just never did. The toper with them was when they tried to charge me for 7 months in advance, and I already had my service on for about 5 months when they tried that.

So far, everytime that I had called Sirius. My problem has been resolved within a day. I really don't have any problem with them.

I travel a local highway called RT24, about 35 miles per day. XM would cut out numerous times. Sirius cuts doesn't cut out at all.

Give it another chance. I have only really called Sirius customer support a few times. Signal isn't bad at all. Also once your account is setup, you never have to call them again unless it's with a problem. They deduct it right from my checking account.

Vic