sirius or xm radio?

[BadMammaJamis]

has anyone used both? what did you like or dislike about them. plus i already know stern is moving to sirius. i've looked at the programming for both and for the most part they look sorta comparable.

[Dirt]

They're both good. If you like Baseball, get XM. If you like Football, get Sirius. I hate both and have XM.

Both integrate really well with systems if you have a head unit designed to control them. I didn't really like being forced to have an extra controller box, so I made sure that I purchased a head unit that has the controllers in it. It is actually difficult to buy a head unit these days that isn't set up to run Sat radio.

I've got Sirius in my Corrado (though the subscription ran out since the car hasn't been on the road for a year) and XM in the GTI.

I use XM in the house. If you're an XM customer, you can get all the XM stations streaming through your computer. Sirius didn't used to do that, but I'm guessing they probably do by now.

Hope that helps.

PEte

[BadMammaJamis]

great. thanks. does one or the other have better receivers. i know both have high and low end models . but overall is one better? the one time i looked at a sirius receiver in the store it looked sorta crappy.

They're both good. If you like Baseball, get XM. If you like Football, get Sirius. I hate both and have XM.

Both integrate really well with systems if you have a head unit designed to control them. I didn't really like being forced to have an extra controller box, so I made sure that I purchased a head unit that has the controllers in it. It is actually difficult to buy a head unit these days that isn't set up to run Sat radio.

I've got Sirius in my Corrado (though the subscription ran out since the car hasn't been on the road for a year) and XM in the GTI.

I use XM in the house. If you're an XM customer, you can get all the XM stations streaming through your computer. Sirius didn't used to do that, but I'm guessing they probably do by now.

Hope that helps.

PEte

[mcmillan]

great. thanks. does one or the other have better receivers. i know both have high and low end models . but overall is one better? the one time i looked at a sirius receiver in the store it looked sorta crappy.

I have the low end XM Roady-2 (less then $99 these days). It works great. I use in in the car and in the home. Had to buy an extra antenna for the house but it works great. Occassionally stream music from their web site and put it on my little iPod for long rides.

If you like music XM may be a better bet. The do a lot of live events that are kind of unique.

[mtbmore]

I just recently got hooked on the IPOD. How do you stream the music to the IPOD from XM. I have a subscription and have listened to the webcasts but I do not know how to save the music.

Scud

[mcmillan]

I just recently got hooked on the IPOD. How do you stream the music to the IPOD from XM. I have a subscription and have listened to the webcasts but I do not know how to save the music.

Scud

I use a streaming audio recorder called Total Recorder. The standard edition is $12 and works great.

http://www.highcriteria.com/

It will record .mp3 format up to a 56kbps sampling rate right out of the box; which is fine for this use. Copy to iTunes and then copy to the iPod.

I set the sampling rate to 32kbps and break the .mp3 files in to 15-30 minute blocks so the files don't get too big. If you are recording off the web their player times out after 1-2 hours so you have to click on something every once in a while. Have not found a way around this yet.

I'm not sure if this violates their terms of service but if it is for personal use only and I delete the stuff after I listen to it I'm sure they don't care. One of these days I'll upgrade to a My-Fi and won't have to do this anymore.

Brian

ps - If you want a higher sampling rate than 56kbps there is a little fiddling you have to do. If you are interseted let me know. You have to replace a .dll file that comes with windows. No big deal.

[mcmillan]

Copy to iTunes and then copy to the iPod.


ps - the total recorder audio driver is not compatable with iTunes. If you get grabled sound when playing stuff back through iTunes go into the recorder and de-delect "use the total recorder audio driver" in the system audio settings.

this is the end of the computer science lecture for today. back to biking.

[bunky]

ps - If you want a higher sampling rate than 56kbps there is a little fiddling you have to do. If you are interseted let me know. You have to replace a .dll file that comes with windows. No big deal.

I do. Where can I get the .dll file?

Also, I assume you can record any streaming audio, such as Yahoo Music, right?

[mcmillan]

I got this off some tech support site a while ago.

Short story, go to WINDOWS\SYSTEM and look for the files L3CODECA.ACM and L3CODECP.ACM. If you have them both then great.

1. Make a backup of L3CODECA.ACM
2. Copy L3CODECP.ACM to L3CODECA.ACM
3. Reboot

You should be good to go. If you don't have a copy of L3CODECP.ACM check another PC. It comes with a lot of software packages.

Should work with any audio stream. I've used it with other internet radio stations like Radio Margaritaville. Never yahoo though.

Brian


The long story:

An mp3 encoder licensed by Microsoft and often residing on Windows computers is the "Fraunhofer Advanced MPEG" codec, which conforms to the Microsoft ACM (Audio Compression Manager) interface. This file is named L3CODECA.ACM and would be found in the Windows System directory. This particular encoder has limitations on available bit-rates and sampling rates. Keep the sampling rate at 22050 or below to use this codec.

The "professional" flavor of the Fraunhofer ACM codec is L3CODECP.ACM in the Windows System directory, and might be bundled with particular programs, and has a more extensive selection of bit-rates and sample rates supported.

[sigsegv]

My wife and I have XM in our cars and love it. We love the music -- it sure beats the hell out of what you can get on FM in this area these days -- especially channels like Fred (80s alternative). I also like the fact that they have MLB, so there's no more FM/AM scanning, looking for the baseball game I'm interested in when I riding home on later nights. We also like the constant weather and traffic reports for the D.C. area (along with many other metro areas).

Can you get this type of thing on Sirius? Quite possibly, with the exception of baseball. FWIW, our neighbors have a Sirius home receive and love it.

On the technical side of things, I read somewhere (can't find where right now... think it might be /., so take this with a huge grain of salt) that the way XM uses or invests in their satellites gives them a huge bandwidth advantage over Sirius. This can mean better sound quality and/or more programming choices / functionality.

Plus, XM is D.C.-based, so if you don't like what they're doing, you can drive down there and egg the building. ;)

-sig

[Dirt]

I just recently got hooked on the IPOD. How do you stream the music to the IPOD from XM. I have a subscription and have listened to the webcasts but I do not know how to save the music.

Scud

Hey Scott.

I haven't messed with digitally recording XM to MP3 format. As McMillan states, it is possible. For any real fidelity, you'll want at least 128kb/s sampling rate. For my own ripping from CD, I usually do 256. That's just me though.

great. thanks. does one or the other have better receivers. i know both have high and low end models . but overall is one better? the one time i looked at a sirius receiver in the store it looked sorta crappy.

I don't use an external receiver. I control the XM and Sirius through the head unit in each of my cars. I have no need to remove a receiver and take it anywhere. The only place I ever use either is in my car or on my computer. I don't need a receiver for my computer to use XM.

If you have an existing radio that does not support XM or Sirius without an external receiver, check and make sure that you've got a good way to play it through your car audio system. The cassette tape adapters and FM modulators allow you to listen to XM or Sirius with a minimal investment, but they have marginal at best fidelity.

When it is set up right, a good hardwired XM or Sirius system sounds FABULOUS! You have to have a very good ear to tell the difference between it and a good quality CD.


Pete

[Dirt]

My wife and I have XM in our cars and love it. We love the music -- it sure beats the hell out of what you can get on FM in this area these days -- especially channels like Fred (80s alternative). I also like the fact that they have MLB, so there's no more FM/AM scanning, looking for the baseball game I'm interested in when I riding home on later nights. We also like the constant weather and traffic reports for the D.C. area (along with many other metro areas).

Can you get this type of thing on Sirius? Quite possibly, with the exception of baseball. FWIW, our neighbors have a Sirius home receive and love it.

On the technical side of things, I read somewhere (can't find where right now... think it might be /., so take this with a huge grain of salt) that the way XM uses or invests in their satellites gives them a huge bandwidth advantage over Sirius. This can mean better sound quality and/or more programming choices / functionality.

Plus, XM is D.C.-based, so if you don't like what they're doing, you can drive down there and egg the building. ;)

-sig

I've found the programming pretty comperable between Sirius and XM. The stations are organized differently, but you'll find the same formats on each for the most part. The talk shows and sports offered are different, but there's a lot of similarity in the music.

Fred, Ethel, Lucy, Squizz and XMU are most of what I listen to on XM. It has been almost a year since I really dove into Sirius, so I don't remember my favorite channels there.

I haven't noticed a real badwidth difference with the two. My impression was always that maybe the XM had better bandwidth, but the sirius buffered better. I do notice that with bikes on the roof, I sometimes lose an XM signal if I'm driving south. The tree cover in this area is enough to disrupt both XM and Sirius. Driving between McLean and Great Falls on Old Dominion will cause either system to lose a signal. Going under the parking lots on I-66 in Arlington, I lose the signal briefly with XM. I don't with Sirius.

Okay, I'm crawling back into my hole. Drop me an e-mail if you've got other questions with this stuff. I probably won't be able to sign back onto the MORE board till Friday night or so.

Later!

Pete

[mcmillan]

I haven't messed with digitally recording XM to MP3 format. As McMillan states, it is possible. For any real fidelity, you'll want at least 128kb/s sampling rate. For my own ripping from CD, I usually do 256. That's just me though.


The only question is what sampling rate do they broadcast over the internet? I know Radio Margaritaville send a stream with 32kbps sampling. In this case eecording at a higher sampling rate doesn't get you improved sound - it just wastes space.

When they had the Cheap Trick Then & Again Live special on a couple of months ago I hooked up my laptop directly to the radio. A higher sampling rate does some good this way.

For listening and riding I keep the sample rate lower because I mostly hear the sound of wind noise.

oh well. time to go riding.

[thenewkid]

My best friend won a Sirius Sportster in a raffle at the Burn 24 hour race. I thought the whole satellite radio thing was kind of cool, but thought that the sportster model looked kind of cheesy. I liked the idea of having an easy to read separate display, and I already had a non-compatible alpine deck, so I went with the XM Roady2 because it was cheap and I thought it looked pretty sleek. It is okay, but I definitely have some problems with it.

1. The Roady2 only has 3 lines of display, and there is no way for it to display title, artist, and the station you are on (or station #) at the same time.

2. I know that connecting directly to the deck would solve this, but the fm modulator has a pretty limited selection of channels. It works fine most places but in Silver Spring, where I live now, it is pretty much impossible to find a channel to tune it to that doesen't overpower the receiver sometimes. There are some blank channels that work fine with the fm modulator my roomate uses for her ipod, but those channels aren't a choice on the roady2.

3. This might not be as much of an issue for some people, but the mounting hardware that comes with the XM radios doesn't provide much articulation and really limits where you can mount the radio. I ended up buying a Sirius mount so that I could put the radio where I wanted it. (on top of my dash)

The programming for XM and Sirius are pretty similar, although from what I have listened to, I think I really like Sirius alot more. Both services now let you listen on your computer.

[Vecsus]

Fred, Ethel, Lucy, Squizz and XMU are most of what I listen to on XM. It has been almost a year since I really dove into Sirius, so I don't remember my favorite channels there.

Pete

You just listed the first 5 presets on my XM system. I have the XM2Go system, the handheld mobile receiver. Came with setups for car, home, and mobile use. I absolutely love it. I have not listened to the radio since I bought XM a month ago. I especially love the 20 slots I have to save favorite artists. The system beeps and notifies me in the LCD window when one of my preset artists is on another channel.

It also has the 5-hour record function and 5-hour battery. And the ability to listen to all of the channels online saves my sanity while at work (no XM reception inside my building).

[CRAIG2]

For the record, neither of us purchased this "fm modulator". No one could really tell us exactly what that did, and why it was necessary. We do have XM / Sirius ready decks, though - I have a Kenwood in the Focus, and a Pioneer in the van. The Kenwood says Sirius ready, but works fine with the XM Roadie I have.

Love XM. Sports channels I really don't care about, and Howard Stern isn't enough reason to make the switch. After a while, the shock wears off, and you get tired of hearing about how small he thinks his pecker is and T & A in general.

Just my two cents,


Craig

[mr_natural]

I had XM last year for 3 months and started getting Sirius on the Dish Network Satellite TV for free so started listening and after comparing i sold the XM and bought Sirius recievers for my cars. The main reason I switched was for the JamOn station on Sirius which plays a great mix of old and new music in the jam band scene: GD, Phish, Allman Bros, DMB, Govt Mule, SCI, Bob Marley and some bluegrass thrown in for a change. The XM station was a mixture of jam bands (although absolutely no GD!, which seems hard to believe on a station that is supposed to play jam bands) and "progressive" bands: Rush, Yes, etc. which are fine if you like that kind of thing but which is a very bad mix with jam bands.

I found XM's traffic reports much better than the Sirius.

I also like the displays on the Sirius receivers better; 5 lines to check 5 stations at once, the artist and song titles on the screen at the same time if you are on a single channel, and the artist names and song titles scroll so you get the whole thing, very annoying with XM when the song title cuts off.

Marty

[Dirt]

One of the cool things that XM is doing is linking the traffic reports to nav systems. With some nav systems you'll get a visual representation of traffic problems and even suggested re-routes.

I can't really talk about the displays that much since I use the ones on the head unit of my respective car stereos. Alpine has 1 line that scrolls all the info. The Kenwood has 3 lines that scroll if needed. The Kenwood gives more info, but I wouldn't try and read it unless I was at a stoplight.

Pete

[bikerRob]

8/11/05 >> A question about the sports (baseball) heard over XM...Would I be able to listen to the Orioles games over XM and would the announcers be the ones from Baltimore ( WBAL )?? Another question...how well do these systems work while going thru the mountains?

[Dirt]

8/11/05 >> A question about the sports (baseball) heard over XM...Would I be able to listen to the Orioles games over XM and would the announcers be the ones from Baltimore ( WBAL )?? Another question...how well do these systems work while going thru the mountains?

I don't know about the announcers. I don't see how they could black out the area if that is what you're asking about. They might have a fleet of trained pigeons that fly in a dense pattern over your car to prevent you from getting a signal. I wouldn't put it past them. ;)

I had no trouble in the mountains of WV, Colorado and Utah with very few exceptions. Glenwood Canyon between Vail and Grand Junction has 300' cliffs within 50' of the road. XM was basically useless. I've had a few back roads in WV with heavy tree cover next to the road cause intermittent outages. I might do better to put the antenna up towards the front of the roof instead of at the very back of the car. The roof line on the GTI is so short that the bikes sometimes shade the antenna.

Hope that helps.

Pete

[ridethewomble]

The announcers for the games are usually the radio announcers for the home town team. I make the statement based upon limited observations, however. For Nats home games, it's usually the 104.1/1050 crew. When they played in Atlanta, Houston, and Philly, the home town AM crews from those cities did the games.

I think blackout rules are written in the contract somewhere, but it's not technically feasible to blank out a highly targeted area on one channel while maintaining broadcast of the other channels - yet. Perhaps when we all have integrated Nav/entertainment systems, they'll monitor our locations and black us out. I'll be right there at the front lines for that privacy fight, though!

[ODG]

I've had both and I prefer XM but...like anything..each has positives and negatives. XM has a wide variety of stations for every taste in music and Sirius has a more concentrated base for it's music. For example...Sirius has like 5 classic rock stations whereas XM only has 1 but uses the additional bandwidth for a greater variety of music. Sirius has more sports....and the one guy they seem to be banking on... Howard Stern. IMO XM also has much better hardware.


I should also add that the DJ's on Sirius seem to be much more annoying. (IE...just like your typical FM radio DJ.)

[bigbadbrad]

I agree w/most replies; XM rocks! I just got it about a month ago or so, but have been interested in it since I heard about the company forming, launching their satellite, etc. Plus an old fave local DJ went there (Bill Wax, on Bluesville, XM's blues channel).

Anyway, I'm hooked. Variety is awesome, and the Roady 2 is cheap-- I got it on sale at Best Buy for $50. It's handy, as you can easily move it between vehicles, albeit slightly cumbersome w/the long antenna wire. I've had a little trouble w/static not from XM's signal, but on the FM frequency (the Roady transmits to a non-functioning FM station on your car's existing radio). That might be the only argument for getting a regular XM unit installed in your car, vs. using Roady. Only time it seems to flare up is near an airport, but it's easily fixed by changing the FM frequency you're using.

Music channels are really good, I haven't even scratched the surface on the talk/news/sports/etc. channels. They also got Bob Edwards from NPR, which is kind of a coup. Plus Sirius is getting Howard Stern, whom I loathe, so that was just another easy decision for XM. Plus, long-term, XM seems a better bet; they've got like waaaaaaaaaaaaay more subscribers than Sirius.

[gotbike]

XM Roady CHEAP!

http://www.ecost.com/ecost/shop/detail.asp?DPNo=194102&wt.mc_id=EWB07832&adcampaign=email,EWB07832

Rebate link
http://eimages.ecost.com/rapcoupons/5187eCOST.pdf



has anyone used both? what did you like or dislike about them. plus i already know stern is moving to sirius. i've looked at the programming for both and for the most part they look sorta comparable.

[CRAIG2]

Regarding coverage / reception, the antennas are pretty much line-of-sight. I lose reception in heavy tree cover (even going home at night on Braddock road between Wakefield and Backlick), and sometimes when I'm heading out along Rte 190 (?) going to group rides out at Riley's Lock, per say. Needless to say, same thing happens in tunnels, and briefly with some overpasses around here. Not sure if antenna position on the car would really help much - mines on the trunk, where Best Buy installed it.

Haven't experimented much with the van yet - it's on the roof, so it's higher up - though, we have the under-the-seat XM tuner wired to a Pioneer deck in the dash, and I'm not sure I want to spend the gas money trying to compare, driving around with a 35 gallon tank at about 12-14 a gallon. :eek:

Craig