by Preston 5 Replies latest social entertainment
I'm looking at getting Satellite Radio this year, between X/M and Sirius. If any of you guys currently have it is it worth it? I heard Sirius carries absolutely no baseball whatsoever so I dunno if I'm going with 'em. Do you guys have any suggestions?
- Preston
Working for Hertz, I was able to briefly experience SIRRIUS Satellite radio. It's much like having cable TV, only it's on the radio. Your able to receive the broadcast of news reports, just as if you were watching cable TV. The rap music also is much truer to real life. No editing expletives and there still are DJ's put they keep the music flowin' constantly, without commercials. It's a nice perk, great if you travel great distances and don't want your stations to drift into invisibleness.
I don't know about the baseball aspect as I'm not a fan of sports.
Satelite radio now is like satelite television in its infancy. The difference is that it doesn't have to compete with cable. I'd wait to see where the industry is going.
My son in law has both since he is on the road from state to state quite often.
If you only want music......Sirius is the way to go. I love it!
If you are interested in some talk radio and sports.......go for XM.
Probably they will both add more as the interest grows.
HappyDad
I wouldn't bother getting it myself. There's no guarantee that it's commercial-free. Anyway, it's illegal to get it (the sattelite service, not the radio) here in Canada until the CRTC approves it and mandates a certain amount of Canadian content.
Preston,
I have had Sirius for about a year now, and I find it to be essential because I am on the road as a salesperson all of the time. It is absolutely worth it. If you love to listen to radio, and if you hate all of the commercials that are inherent with TV, you are going to love satellite radio. I can share what I like and dislike about Sirius, however I have never owned XM and have only listened to it a handful of times, so my thoughts about XM may not give you a complete picture. Keep in mind that what I list as likes and dislikes may not be just for Sirius, but could be overlap issues for both Sirius and XM due to the fact that it may be less of a brand characteristic, and more of a general satellite radio characteristic.
It appears to me, although XM is currently the larger of the two companies, that Sirius has been much more aggressive about bringing in new programming. In the last year Sirius has signed Howard Stern, Jimmy Buffett, Martha Stewart, and Cousin Brucie, just to name a few. Although the merits, and talent, of some of these people are always up for debate, I think that Sirius has shown that they want to improve and bring a wide variety of programming. I am sure that XM will have an answer, however thus far I don't think they have responded very well.
I like some of the ideas that XM has come up with for the actual radios. For instance, they have a "Walkman" type radio that allows you to listen while exercising, working in the yard, etc. To my knowlege Sirius does not have this yet. I think both companies have a "boom box" feature. That means you can take the conroller out of the cradle that is in your car, plug it into the boom box that already has speakers and an antennea, and you can carry your music with you. I use my boom box all of the time at the beach. It comes with a cord that will plug into the car ashtray and another cord that is AC power and will plug into an outlet if you are near one. Additionally, I think both companies have a similar cradle that will allow you to bring your satellite controlller into the house and play it through your home stereo. I bought both of these features and they only cost $50.00 each. That's not very much when you consider that they allow you to access your satellite service for no additional charge. It is great to be able to carry your service wherever you go. Keep in mind this is not possible, however, if you have your satellite radio built into the dash of the car. That's why I chose the modular model, rather than building it into the dash. Although not as attractive, it is much more flexible.
XM has baseball, as you mentioned, and Sirius has NFL football. If that is a deal breaker for you then I would definitely buy XM. One of the nice things, again, about having a modular unit is that you can bring it in the house and listen to your favorite game if it is blacked out on TV. I am a New England Patriots fan, but I can never get them on TV in Florida because they never have Patriots football on unless it is Monday Night Football. So the Satellite radio comes to the rescue because they carry all of the games. I am sure it is true as well with baseball and XM.
As far as music goes, I think that Sirius has excellent music selection, although my wife complains that she thinks that the music is on a loop and that she hears the same songs. We listen to different music and I don't have the same thought about that. She listens to Pop, which always seems to play the same songs over and over again, while I tend to listen to a station that plays Jamming type music like the Grateful Dead, Phish, etc., or 70's era music. She thinks I am very unobservant (and she might be right) and I think she is imagining things (which I think I am right about). Whichever it is, it ends up making us laugh when we talk about it.
It was mentioned above that XM has better talk radio. That is one area I can't comment on because I have not listened to talk radio on XM. I think both companies have ESPN, which I think is indespensible. There is nothing like listening to Dan Patrick in the afternoon. I would definitely visit both websites and look at their content. I know that Sirius has all of their programming on the website and they will even let you sample content on the web for three days if you sign up for a free three day pass. I am sure that XM has a similar program, although I don't know that for sure.
Sirius has continuous traffic reports for many major cities in the US. I don't know if XM has this or not. This is a very nice feature if you are a commuter in a large city. I use it all of the time for Orlando, FL and Atlanta, GA...two cities that I spend way too much time in for work.
Although advertised as commercial free, satellite is only commercial free when it comes to music. All Talk, Sports, Court TV, Discovery Channel, News, etc. have commercials. There are not too many commercials as yet, except for ESPN. They have a million of them.
Also keep in mind that, if you have the money, try to get the higher end radios. They tend to have really nice features that you will appreciate after you have had the service for a while. I bought a low end radio, just in case I decided I didn't like satellite radio, and I regretted it.
Finally, let me just reiterate that, for me, satellite is a must have. I use it all of the time. I will have problems with both companies if the service gets too expensive. I have a threshold where it does not seem worth it at some point if they are charging too much for it. It kind of reminds me of cable TV in it's infancy. Remember when they said that there would be very few, if any, commercials on TV because it was a pay service? Hah! We got sucked into that one. Now we pay an exorbitant amount of money to be marketed to in our living rooms every night...but that is a rant for another day. If you have any more questions, please feel free to ask and I will answer them to the best of my knowlege. Regards.
exjdub
