Satellite Radio

[Heard It On The X]

I just wanted to put this out there to everyone on the board. Have any of you taken the plunge and signed up for a satellite radio service? If so, which one and why? The reason I ask is I've been kinda tempted to try one out but can't quite justify the expense. Any compelling arguments, pro or con?

[Aaron]

I'm on Sirius with a Canadian sub (there's very little difference now), and can't imagine being without it. I'm listening to more talk than I thought I would (Stern and NPR), and find I have a new favourite music station every month. I've had the thing a year and I'm still discovering channels and shows. I also find Sirius' music programmnig far superior to XM's.

The signal is close to perfect. At home, I don't even need to be near a window since we have local repeaters. In the car, I basically never have dropouts.

The only downside is that if you're even a little bit of an audiophile, you'll be frustrated with the sound quality (except on Stern). They've added more channels than the setup's really designed for, and it leaves most stations sounding like a mid-rate webstream. I'm sure it will get better as technology improves, and they've already started experimenting with a new codec on certain channels.

[tuned]

Which are the fifteen channels that you listen to on a regular basis? Both XM and Sirius let you stream most of their channels for a free trial on the net. I listened to them both and was majorly underwhelmed, especially with the music channels. In my opinion no thought when into them and the programming was what you'd expect from Clear Channel without the commercials. The lack of local programming is a large negative. Other than maybe Stern there isn't anything compelling enough on pay radio to get me to spend the money on a bunch of new hardware as well as adding another bill to my stack every month. No one that I know has pay radio.

[tuned]

Well maybe I'm missing something Tot....that's why I asked which 15 channels are the ones that are great?

[jon]

At the beginning of this year, I, too, chose Sirius over XM because of the music channels. Cannot find my list right now, but things like XM having a '50s channel that included all forms of music from that time, while the Sirius '50s channel is youth-oriented.

But I returned my $50 receiver and only paid for the first month of Sirius subscription. Because I realized that what I really want to do with my time in the car is listen to my CD collection, so I plan to buy an MP3 player. I delayed my purchase because I could not find one that would also be a professional quality digital audio (.wav) recorder for the other work I do -- I bought a TASCAM DP-01 PortaStudio for that for $374, which includes a 40GB hard drive and USB connection to my computer.

It would have cost me $80 to get the receiver installed, because I could not figure out how to get the satellite antenna outside without risk of having the cable compromise the water seal. For those who do not know, the manual specifically states that the antenna will not work inside a vehicle.

In my 20 minute test, done solely in my car, I could not detect any audio quality issues with Sirius. But, as I joked to a fellow at work who had just received his factory special sound system and new car to go with it, why this concern with audio quality in an environment with the acoustic qualities of a phone booth? i.e. - it is pretty tough to discriminate sound quality issues in a vehicle, especially when it is moving.

[segueking2]

Sirius is now up to about 0.0000000067 of the population and will be bankrpt before the end of 2007.

Their cashflow problems and the galloping cost of just 'eating' will kill extraneous expenses like a monthly charge to listen to old Chicago records streamed at 32 kb.

This business model has been designed by the same pie in the sky yokels that said streaming media on the net would make a fortune.

WRONG-O.

[Aaron]

The ads on XM's music stations were forced on there by ClearChannel, who used to own a chunk of it, and still program a handful of channels. XM fought that one in the courts, lost, and countered by offereing their own commerical-free versions of the same formats.

[Cliff Bashly Kinkade]

All of that coming from a GENIUS who posts on a message board!

And you are?