Speaking of Car stereo, here's my take on Sirus XM

For me it’s worth it if you get the $6 (or so) per month rate. No way it’s worth full price. As others have said if you call after every 6 month promo expires they will keep extending you indefinitely. It’s a bit of a hoop to jump through but oh well.

Sound quality is acceptable to me. At least on the channels I listen to. I remember a while back pre merger that some of the talk channels were impossible to listen to because they were so obviously compressed. Not sure if that’s still the case as I don’t really do talk radio anymore.

The channel lineup is a little too geared to the older audience for me. Lots of oldies or old timer dedicated channels. Not enough new music.
 
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OK, after all that bravado talk I caved. I got a rep who was helpful and since we do at least 24 days on the road per year driving between Texas and Jersey it helps. Besides, I love that 40's music station and the Christmas channels were nice (that's the wife talking here).

The guy said take the $30 for 6 months package. BEFORE the six months is up, cancel. Then, I can either go for their $11/month "Mostly Music" plan or, if I can sweet talk them I can get another promotion.

At worst, I cold live with that $11/month, but it sticks in my craw that I can't use it in other vehicles/devices like I can do with all my other apps, both music and video.
 
Wow lot of different opinions. Seems those who subscribe are OK with it, Those who do not do not like it. Cost is a factor for many so they will not spend the money. It's about $12.00 a month. I spend that on a four pack of good craft beer and piss it out. I never have smoked but if there are people here who will not spend the money for Satellite radio and they are smokers well that is their decision.
Sound quality & signal quality. Yea again non subscribers hate it. Subscribers are not complaining. My 2011 Malibu used to have a Bose system in it and I sounded pretty darn good. There were places where the signal used to drop out like clockwork. I blamed the satellite. Couple places were out in the open. When I sold the Malibu the 2013 Explorer had it in it with a free trial. Signal was not dropping anymore. I had no problem with the service contacts pro-rating from the Malibu beginning after the trial was completed and yes there were deals made. I can go on the web site and do anything I choose without them. Payment twice a year is hardly noticed. Have considered stopping the service but whenever I am in the Ex I have it tuned to the same stations. The sound in the Explorer was horrid. I removed the cheap factory toy speakers as well as balance out the rear by disconnecting a pair of speakers which made a great difference. Replacing the door speakers and tweeter brought out sound I am proud of.
I listen to commercial free music. Jazz Channel. BBKing Blues Channel. Deep Tracks, Vintage Vinyl, Soul Channel, On trips I go all over the dial and enjoy the selection. I get my moneys worth. I enjoy the sound. It's been said the signal is crunched but the truth is what ever source the music is captured on is more of a sound quality issue then the signal. I can hear the differences depending on the era of the music.
They are offering mucho sports and many TV news channels. I can see in the future where they will be broadcasting video.
The stock is cheap and I believe there is a good future for the company. Have yet to use the internet option. I thought it costs more??
Bottom line is I hate commercial radio and TV and will pay extra to not be subjected to the commercial brainwashing. All these streeming services may be nice but I am always learning of new music on SiriusXM from the program directors. My play list is longer then any or all of you streemers.
https://www.siriusxm.com/sxm/pdf/xm/channelguide.pdf
 
I pay $10 a month for Spotify Premium because I am home all day most every day since the wife works and I am retired. If we were on the road more than few days a month I would turn on the Sat radio in the car in a heartbeat.

It is funny to see people talk about some services like they are evil ........"I heard they put babies on spikes to get better reception". Jeeze, dont like it, dont buy it.
 
Personally I'm surprised how few dropouts I get. I'm sure come cars are worse than others. But I very rarely have a problem.
 
Personally I'm surprised how few dropouts I get. I'm sure come cars are worse than others. But I very rarely have a problem.
factory entune in the rav - hideous drop outs, factory radio in the jettas - flawless, caddy, almost never drops out - these are all factory installs. but the starmate in a dock, heck we had the antenna taped to the front dash in the lesabre...rarely dropped
 
When XM and Sirius were still separate companies I tried XM because I'm a truck driver.

Some time later I tried Sirius and was truly amazed at how much better it sounded. They offered me a lifetime subscription for $299.99, which I purchased.

Then after XM bought Sirius the sound quality went to shit. I still have my Sirius radio with the lifetime subscription and can transfer it to a newer radio for a $75 fee. I only listen to it when driving, but most of the time it's turned off.
 
This thread has reminded me that I have access to most of the SXM music channels as part of my Dish Network sub. So I spent a few minutes yesterday afternoon and scrolled through them, something I haven't done in years. Truth be told, if I had access to a local FM station half as good as Underground Garage, my dial would never move. The Americana & Bluegrass stations had some decent selections as well. Is it worth $20 a month? If I spent more time on the road, and wanted an all-in-one source for music & news & sports, I might be tempted. But I don't, so I'm not. May start listening to Underground Garage on my TV a bit more often...
 
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We have it playing all day long in our workplace, but we have the commercial service which is hideously expensive but legally required if you play it in a public place of business. That's why I loathe it so much!

Play music in the workplace, in public, you have to pay ASCAP/SESAC/BMI. Simple fact of life. Or the risk of legal action. The performing rights organizations are aggressive about getting their money. I like the Sirius/XM content OK, the sound quality blows chunks. Not enough bitrate. AM Radio on a wide band tuner with a good signal, on a good music format is way higher fidelity to my trained ear. And I dislike their business practices.
 
I have 5000 songs on a USB stick on permanent Shuffle.

When I got my Buick with the trial I first thought it was cool but by the end of 3 months I found myself bouncing between 3 stations and a wrestling talk show so just not worth what they charge even with what they call a deal.
 
I picked up a Sirius boombox at a yard sale last May and it ran until right after Thanksgiving when it notified me I needed to renew "my" sub. Mostly I found I would just flip it to whatever was interesting at the moment and leave it on in the background. It was really more of a novelty than anything else. If I ever had any desire to get sat radio for my car it probably died after having the boombox. I never heard enough different content than what I was already getting from my phone plan.

We have an unlimited data plan and streaming has been my go-to since ~2007. Never into Stern and don't follow specific artists closely so random music streaming was always fine, still is. The amount you can live stream from cellular is mind boggling as nearly every radio station in the country is online. News, talk, financial, Bloomberg, and more are out there plus station music programming. All the preceding applies to college radio and NPR too. I used to use the iHeart app for streaming but switched to TuneIn last year and its search function is great. Add online streaming music "stations" such as Radio Paradise or Soma-FM and there is even more to listen to. Then add podcasts, their number is staggering. Add the youtube app and crikey, even more! If you have an Amazon Prime or Netflix account add the app and again, even more as you can stream the audio of anything. I am not even scratching the surface here for content, it's truly limitless.

So for me it comes down to a smart phone with a big data plan. Audio quality is good enough as once you turn the car on and start rolling you've thrown SQ out the window. It takes a lot of prep and baseline work to get great sound from a vehicle on the move (if it's not an upper-end model). I've got a middling bluetooth headunit in the car and can dump files onto USB for even more. I seldom do that though just stream. Nearly any of the music I stream has a high bitrate option of 320kbps but you can go down to AM radio SQ if needed. For most things, 128kbps a good compromise. And when home I switch to wifi and connect the phone to my system. So at this time unless something radically changed at best sat radio would just be a redundancy to what I already have.
 
I have S/XM in 2 of my vehicles, and I agree that the sound quality is, at best, marginal. I can switch to streaming from my smart phone and the sound quality is WORLDS better. With that said, and the fact that these are 2 vehicles that I really don't drive very much, I'll probably be cancelling the service to these vehicles when its time for renewal.
 
Personally I do not have Sirius XM but my buddy does and he loves it. I would not mind getting it myself as the local radio stations around me seem to play the same 4 songs all day, but my new car did not come with an XM radio so oh well. For what it is worth my friend did manage to haggle a $50/year deal out of them when he called to renew once. Your mileage may vary though.
 
I just received a letter from Sirius XM today. They had two offers for me. Six months for $30 or 12 months for $100. I guess I am missing the logic here. I should pay more per month if I subscribe for a longer period of time? I am choosing neither as I usually do. SXM must be feeling the pinch from lack of new subscribers.
 
The way that works is the first six months are $30. The next six months are billed at $16/months, or $96 for a total of $126. That $100 is a savings of $26.

Now, what my salesperson told me is to go for that deal but about two weeks before the 6 months is up, drop the $16/ mo plan and switch to the $11/month "Mostly Music" plan. That's my plan of attack.
 
The way that works is the first six months are $30. The next six months are billed at $16/months, or $96 for a total of $126. That $100 is a savings of $26.

Now, what my salesperson told me is to go for that deal but about two weeks before the 6 months is up, drop the $16/ mo plan and switch to the $11/month "Mostly Music" plan. That's my plan of attack.

That's what I did. Still gets everything I would want to hear.
 
I have been subscribing continuously to XM for at least 13 years and it has always been a love/hate relationship for me. Both sides have long lists. First, my positives.

Quite happy with the content, as I'm mostly a rock-alt-acoustic kind of guy. Lots of stations for me. Tons of content for most tastes. I'm not very interested in thumbs up/down nonsense. Most of my stations keep me happy with no input from me. Like a real radio station.

By sticking to the music stations, I can avoid advertising entirely. This is incredibly important to me.

I'm a baseball fan so XM has me covered there. Tons of sports.

Same content no matter where you are. Favorite stations are always there.

The not so positives.

Actual satellite reception is absolutely laughable. I'm in the Seattle area and anything outside the urban terrestial repeater areas is incredibly spotty. Too many hills and trees? Too far North? Listening indoors requires line of sight between the satellite and your antenna. Not always easy to arrange. I haven't been able to listen at work for years. I've been at it for a long time and despite lots of effort, equipment, and experience I fight this battle EVERY day. This is easily my biggest dislike. Internet access is a solution but has it's own limitations. One device at a time doesn't work when your wife listens to XM as much as you do. And I have lots of bandwidth competition at home.

Cost is significant and going up every time I turn around. I just got a message from XM warning me that the royalty rates are going up. Not their fault, but the costs only go in one direction. But that's not unique to them. Charging me for each individual device gets tiresome once you reach a certain point. I have a portable MyFi device, a Polk home component tuner, and an internet subscription and it costs me over $35 a month. And my Sirius trial in my new Jeep will run out soon. I'm not sure what that will cost but I'm not giving that up, as that is the only device I have that doesn't deal with reception problems. Almost perfect reception there. How about charging me for the first four devices and calling it good?

I'm not in love with their business practices and the support seems kind of skinny.

Classical and Jazz programming is way too limited. I'm lucky to have public radio to fill that gap. With the bonus of real fidelity.

Sound quality is marginal no matter the device.

Obviously the immense satisfaction of the programming has overcome the significant disappointment of the delivery. I can't imagine not having it to enjoy. But I can't imagine spending much more for it. Love/hate indeed.
 
Sirius XM....been there, done that, won't go back. Seriously poor quality sound.....to the point that horns & cymbals sound swirly...almost like a badly worn out 8-track tape! Reception is worse than regular FM radio (which is FREE!!!) And the selection of channels is become worse. Songs repeat again over & over after about 3-4 hours. From what I understand, sound quality is poor due to the size of the bandwidth used to squeeze all those channels in. I've been told it was better sounding when they were two distinct companies (before the merger) The only redeeming thing about it was the addition of the Beatles channel last year, but if I want to listen to anything & everything the Beatles ever release, I just plug in my iPod :p:biggrin:

So as of this writing, I would not go back (even though I got a thing in the mail yesterday trying to lure me back for $25 for 6-months) Why pay for an inferior quality product when you can have a superior sounding one for free??:crazy: Yep, I still listen to FM.
 
There is a lot of great information in this string. We have had Serius or XM for most of the past 10 years, and just use the basic music package. We keep paying for it because of no commercials, music variety and ease of use. We have a subscription for home with a portable Roady unit and another one for the car we do most of our travelling in. Home reception has taken a little work due to trees, but is OK now. There are occasional problems with reception in the car here is the northeast, but not enough to be a problem. It's great to have a portable home system, so it can be used in another car, or be brought with us on vacation. However, I have found that the portable equipment is not durable. The antenna's seem to deteriorate over time and it is too easy to break the tiny wire pin in the antenna wire connection if it's been disconnected/reconnected a bunch of times. Same for the jacks. Very frustrating. The SUBX-1 boombox that we got with our original Sportster 4 is very good for a portable. The Roady boombox is not so good. The discussion on signal compression is interesting. Does anyone know if it varies from channel to channel, or what the decrease in compression is when streaming?
 
I listen to Sirus XM on my Dish Hopper (output 2 home stereo) ... the music only version (guess it's called) is part of my package. I like their programming .. sounds good to me (better than I thought it would) on the stations I like ... 60's,70's, 80's, Seriously Sinatra, Willie's Roadhouse, BB King Bluesville, Real Jazz, The Bridge .. etc.

Never used it in a car (aside from rentals) ... usually I play the Ipod in the car ... if I even bother to play music while driving any more. Don't drive as much as I use to ... aside from vacations.
 
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