bamachem

this is the sirius receiver that i have:



i didn't mount my antenna. instead, i just coiled up the wire and put the antenna on the dash up by the windshield. i drop the power cord down to the glove compartment and then out (leaving the excess hidden) to the cig lighter for power. that way, it isn't permanently mounted and can me moved from car to car in a couple minutes at most.

reception is great, even on the trails. for me, it was easy to choose between sirius and xm. sirius carries crimson tide sports (alma mater) and radio margaritaville (i'm a hopeless parrothead). other than those, the services are pretty much the same.

Localmotion

I was actually looking at that one. It matches my HU and looks bling!!!!

I like the portability of it and the way you mouned it was genius.

bamachem

i love it. it's one of the smaller ones and is very functional, very portable, and i like the remote. it works on a FM transmitter (built in), so it's a breeze to swap between vehicles. i also have a home kit that has a power cord, home antenna, and RCA plugs to supply the tunes to bose lifestyle in the living room. it still transmits on the FM signal, so we can still tune in on one of the upstairs rooms, but we just can't change the channels w/o going downstairs.

Localmotion

I'm SOLD!!!!

time to find the best prices!

bamachem

that link above is for best buy. $99 + a $20 rebate. it was $150 back in december w/ a $50 rebate. you also don't have to buy new. just buy a used one if you want and call sirius w/ the serial number and you'll have service in a matter of a few minutes.

oh, and it comes w/ the windshield mount, the antenna, power cord, & remote w/ battery. you literally don't need a thing other than subscribing after you buy it.

lee

yeah you can use the fm transmitter in the car, but if you have something like the alpine ai-net, id get the cord to plug into the headphone jack.

i did that on mine and it is SO much better.

snap-on

i want to get your opinion on the quality.

the only stuff ive heard was VERY MP3 artifictish... sounded craptastic. worse than FM. If im gonna shell out good $$ for music i want it to sound good.

(im somewhat snobish when it comes to sound quality)

Localmotion

yea, this is true.

I have a pretty $$$ sound setup now and I dont want distorted music. From what I hear, the FM transmitter built in some of the units are excellent. Of course, hardwiring is the best, but I want the portability function.

bamachem

mine has excellent sound quality - very little distortion at high volume. not quite CD, but WAY better than MP3 or regular FM stations.

midiwall

You and I have talked a bit about audio stuff, and I've seen you post around here about your tastes in gear... Personally, I think the sound of sat radio will drive you nuts.

I mentioned this a bit before, but here's more info...


(disclaimer... the following is pretty critical, but comes from a critical ear. The stuff I'm about to bash the daylights out of won't be heard by everyone, but it's important to know for those that WILL hear it)


When XM and Sirius started, they had ... 100ish stations. And at the time, they were BOTH full-up on bandwidth. That's 'cause all the streams were running at "full" bandwidth - 192k vbr. _awesome_ stuff.

Then came the market push to add more stations, and they had no expansion room.

They only thing they could do was to start squishing everything to make room. More-or-less overnight, all of the music stations went to 128k cbr. The talk stations (cnn, sports) went to 64k. Not a huge problem, people were "okay" with it.

More market push, more stations... MORE squishing. But this time, they cranked the compressors to squish the dynamic range. If I remember right, they basically saved a bit - I think they went from 14bit encoding to 13. That adds up across 100+ stations.

They didn't stop there. They cranked the bitrate down even more.

They went through the lineups and tried to be smart about it. The talk stations got the most whacking (I think CNN's down to 32k vbr) while the electronica stations have the most (to try to preserve the high end). The rock stations got hit though, but not as bad as the "world" stations or the kids stuff.

With the compressors cranked a notch, and the bit rate turned down, they now REALLY screwed things up... they turned on a high-emphasis kicker at the receiver. _argh_ This took what high end was left in the rock stations and now made it sound like... well, think "cymbal crash" or a nice ride pattern on the horn. Okay, now encode that at 64k cbr, squish it, then turn on a high emph kicker that sounds like it's centered around 10khz.

It ain't pretty.

The upside is that there's no phase distortion from the kicker. There _is_ phase swirling present on some of the more compressed stations (don't go looking to "world" for regge, you won't be able to stand it).

The ugly-ugly stuff is all talk radio - The local traffic stations are almost unintelligible, the news stations are "okay" 'cept the sound quality in the commercials (think CNN's 15 sec theme drops) is HORRENDOUS.


Now... all that said, yes, it's still better than some MP3 encoding, and it's definitely better than any FM.

But.. it ain't what it used to be.

There's little hope of it getting better. The fan sites have been biotching about this for years, and nothing's being done. XM _did_ tweak up some of the rock stations, but it sounds like they did it by tossing a low pass shelf in front of the compressors. it's not bad, but the THUMP! of a kick is gone, the 150hz THWACK! is still there.


My best suggestion is to go to an car audio store that will let you listen on a real receiver. Do the normal thing os setting everything flat, know the speakers, YOU control the volume, etc. You have to judge for yourself on what you can deal with.

DO NOT JUDGE AUDIO QUALITY BY THE ONLINE WEB STREAMS! They're picked off before the uplink encoding and sound different that what you'll hear in the car.


I'm still okay with it... and the sad truth is that I hate FM enough to put up with a bit more.

snap-on

for serius have they upped sterns bit rate? from the clips ive heard the sounded really clipped, kinda twangy on the voice stuff.

midiwall

Dunno... Given the contract they gave him, I'd bet that they'd be into doing what it takes to keep his listeners, but there'll be a point of diminishing returns if they have to sacrifice something else.

Besides... how much bandwidth do you really need to hear a female body part?

Epic Ed

I've had both for over two years and by far I prefer the programming on Sirius. XM tries to get too eclectic with their stations. You'll hear music you've never heard before, but there's a reason -- that's because most of their obscure selections that don't make ragular radio plays lists SUCK. There is no "rock" station. They have a variety of flavors of rock, but nothing that duplicates what you might hear on a regular FM station play list. Some people really enjoy XM for this reason. It's one of the reasons I think their play list suck. I'll tune in to Squizz and hear a couple of tunes I know and really dig, and then I'll hear a 1/2 hour of crap I've never heard of before -- most of which isn't very good.

Sirius, on the other hand, follows a more traditional play list that mimics what you'll hear on most metropolitan radio markets. Rock comes in several varieties, but its recognizable stuff -- hair nation gets you 80s band stuff; Octane is contemporary rock; Buzzsaw is metal; ALt Nation is adult alternative. No surprises and very few "B" side cuts. It's the stuff I expect to hear and want to hear.

Just my taste -- YMMV. As for the quality, it all sounds better than FM to me. Certainly better than FM as you're driving down the highway trying to catch the transmissions from various radio stations along your route.

Ed

4x4Lamm

I have the Sirius SV1 stand alone unit.

I like Sirius country better than XM.

Lamm

lee

stern sounds good to me... no odd or bad sounds there.

the music seems to vary for me... some rock stations have better sound than others somehow

Localmotion

Man, just my luck.

Today my HU crapped out on me. It was an Alpine CDA 7864. I loved it! Now I have to buy a new HU before I get sirius. UGH!!!!!!!

:cry: :cry:

bamachem

I have a clarion that i got off of ebay. I've always had good luck w/ Clarion HU's.

Bumpin' Yota

I've had both. XM and Sirius. I cancelled the XM for my MiFi and am keeping the Sirius. Why?

XM has a horrible selection of techno, their 20 on 20 plays nothing but top 40 whiney emo crap, and 21 is the best station going for XM, and even that sucks! The rest of their channels again blow donkey nuts.

Sirius on the other hand has some stuff I can actually listen to... EVERY NFL game from BOTH broadcasts, a GOOD selection of techno, a GOOD selection of top 40 stuff with not so damn much homo-leghumping-imissusomuch-emo-crap... Couldn't care less about stern or da sponge... LEX AND TERRY FOR LIFE!

I install both systems on almost a daily basis, and yeah sirius is the way to go. I can't wait till they get the MLB then I can have my braves baseball too!!

hlpressley

I have Sirius via a direct tuner box hardwired into my Eclipse HU. The sound quality is horrible and the customer service is even worse. I was told by Circuit City that this direct tuner box would give me CD sound quality or better. That is bullÅÅÅÅ. My sound quality isn't even as good as the local AM talk station. It sucks and so does Sirius. I would ask for some type of satisfaction guarntee befor you buy. Just my experience.


BTW I have a three week old Eclipse Sirius tuner box for sale pretty cheap. It is covered under the additional warranty from Circuit City. PM me if interested. It will also come with continued service through August 06 from Sirius.

ldivinag

wow... i'd try another unit if i were you.

my 3 y/o audiovox PNP2 unit sounds great. even when i use the FM MOD on one car.

on the 4runner, it is hooked to the son unlink bus via an analog stream to a digital EQ which converts to digital, does the proc'ing and dumps back to analog.

no problems and none of the AM quality...