XM Radio vs. Sirius Radio

[Spiegs1106]

I was reading the thread about the better sports radio but I want to know the best overall company.

I was also wondering if anyone had any suggestions toward which reciever to get. I would like something I can put in my car and in addition bring home and put in a boombox.

[Minor League Skilz]

I just got the Sirius Sportster Boombox a few months ago and it is pretty cool. I like tons of different music but I am mainly a classic rock fan and IMO the Sirius channels blows XM's away. I borrowed a friends Xm for a while and I was not impressed with the music selection. It was one good song, one bad song the whole time.

I am a bigger fantasy baseball guy and usually purchase the MLB package for TV so I didn't need the baseball games on XM. (Although I heard the MLB talk channel is decent). I like the football on Sirius and don't have any complaints about the Sports news and talk.

I also have been a Stern fan for most of my life and I am interested to see what he plans on doing there.

Sirius gets a big from me.

[acsguitar]

As a semi dirty semi hippi I like Sirius it has football too

[thedude]

XM has more channels and (at least in my humble opion) better music. I have an XM reciever (Delphi XM, MyFi Radio Receiver) which is Portable. It works in your car, in your home, and has a built in antenna so you can use it like a walkman. It works great. The baseball talk station is almost worth it by itself. I suppose if you were a HUGE howard stern fan it might be worth it, but otherwise go XM.

[Mercer Boy]

Both satellite radio services are good just because it's not normal radio. No commercials for the music stations, no censorship on the rock stations, good reception all the time, and good sports coverage.

Either one is worth it if you hate regular radio, but it depends on what you want to hear. If you like baseball, then obviously XM is for you. If you are into football, then go Sirius. I just bought a Sirius radio about four days ago. Having football and Howard Stern swayed me to Sirius.

I haven't listened for long, but I think the music is essentially about the same. I have XM on my DirecTV, and it's basically the same as Sirius. Both have just about every type of music you can imagine.

If you like news, then you may want XM more after the end of the year if Fox and Sirius can't iron out their contract dispute. Most of the news services will be on XM, and only a few are on Sirius.

XM having a truly portable player is a plus for XM, but I'm sure Sirius will have one soon. XM has more subscribers, but that could be because of the car companies that they have deals with (GM is with XM, the others are for Sirius). I just went on my Sirius forum, and it says their new unit may become portable in the next 6 months.

For you Canucks, Sirius just started service to Canada.

To me, sat. radio is like the satellite TV industry right now. XM is DirecTV with more subscribers, and Dish is Sirius, in second but still provides a good service. So as long as you want commercial free music and some sports news in the car and the home, either one is good.

(FYI - having more channels is bad on sat. radio...it steals bandwidth from the other stations and makes the sound quality worse and worse)

[bceagles04]

hmm...I was wondering..

how does the pricing work?

Roughly how much per month?

I know you pay a start fee, but how much/month after htat?

And is it worth it? I could just plug in my ipod...for free...

[Mercer Boy]

hmm...I was wondering..

how does the pricing work?

Roughly how much per month?

I know you pay a start fee, but how much/month after htat?

And is it worth it? I could just plug in my ipod...for free...

The first fee is buying the receiver. Right now, they are priced from free to about $320. The new Sirius receiver can record programming for four hours which you can play on the go, so it is sort of like an iPod.

Both servcies are 13 dollars a month if you go monthly. There are better deals when you sign up for longer times. I went for the lifetime subscription on Sirius for $500 because I just don't see myself ever listening to normal radio again (as long as they don't go out of business ).

If you have an iPod and just want to listen to the music on there and pay for it per song, that's a fine option as well. The thing with sat. radio is that you can hear any type of music you want at any time, plus it has news/weather/sports...I don't think iPods have that.

[sooner711]

So can you listen to the delphi xm myfi by itself, or do you have to have a radio with you also?

[Mercer Boy]

So can you listen to the delphi xm myfi by itself, or do you have to have a radio with you also?

It is a true portable radio essentially...it has the receiver and antenna built in together.

The Sirius S50 has to be docked in order to recieve Sirius programming; however, it has the ability to record four hours of programming which can be heard portably. As I just found out tonight on my Sirius forum, this unit is rumored to become fully portable like the Myfi sometime next year.