which one

[mouse01]

i was looking into getting xm for my car. i would like to hear from those who have one what are the pros and cons to this technology. i would also like to know if they are all able to be unlocked or is there a specific one? or is sirus a better option?

[MR_HOCKEY]

hello

we i would go with Xm radio, just saying that as this is what we have in are boat and works great.

as far as to unlock it yes some what but never did try it. here is the file i found check it out.

if this files is not ok then just delete it and sorry for the trouble.

also here are some keys that came with it

HollaBack Productions


D3 2A C3 5D 08 0F 02 00 03 8C 34 F7 77 10 DE 14
72 C5 60 72 AA 61 72 24 62 72 03 04 72 60 15 88
3B D7 2A E7 77 20 DE 14 72 D3 60 72 2A 61 72 C3

[mouse01]

thank you

[jones07]

I have both XM and SIRIUS My wife likes XM. But I have Sirius in my car. I like Sirius because of their 100% commercial-free music. I don't hack either one, Because I enjoy their service and they are very small operations that need the money to stay in business. And hell what's $13 a month ?

[mouse01]

13 a month is a hassle. 156 a year is convenient. do they have a pay in advance plan? do they have a lifetime rate like tivo does?

[mouse01]

i looked them up and they have a couple of packages. they were smarter than to sell lifetime.

2yr 199.00
3yr 299.00
4yr 399.00
5yr 499.00

[Grem467]

i have both and will say this, i love sirius for the content, but XM for the sound quality...

if i had to choose one, it would probably be sirius, but either is FAR better then FM

[RiseStar]

I have XM on my truck and it rocks. I haven't needed a CD in months.

It gets great reception in most of southern Canada, with the exception of heavily treed or mountainous areas.

As far as commercial free, didn't XM advertise commercial free in the beginning and then change later?

[loco502]

Most of the stations are comercial free, i guess they needed the extra cash flow form paid advertisements, i love XM because i can drive all the way down to mexico and still get their signal :D

[diode37]

i have xm also for goin on 2 years
its the sony unit that u can take from car 2 car and uses cigerette lighter plug for power and cassette adapter for the sound
yes they work just fantastic
they do have teristrial towers in the bigger cities
on xm and this is for tunnels i guess and dont know if sirrus has those or not but if u get close to a tower it will switch to it and the only way u know its switched to a local tower is a beep beep from the unit itself but the music never goes out and sound exactly the same
as far as commercials-well yea ive noticed an incline as far as commercials go as when i first got it there wasnt any but now i hear 2 or 3 commercials every hour or 2
i dont like that part of it though but can deal w/it ;)

[jones07]

Originally posted by mouse01
i looked them up and they have a couple of packages. they were smarter than to sell lifetime.

2yr 199.00
3yr 299.00
4yr 399.00
5yr 499.00

Sirius offers Lifetime !

"Limited Time Offer - From August 15, 2003 to January 31, 2004 for $399.99 you can get SIRIUS for the life of your satellite radio."

[rob13572468]

there are a few differences between xm and sirius. both use satellites but the orbits are different; xm uses standard geostationary orbits at 85 and 115 degrees, the satellites are boeing 702's that output 3000 watts each, sirius uses three birds in a special elliptical orbit; the elliptical orbit was originally used buy the russians to provide continuous coverage for their northernmost cities that sat too far north to get decent coverage, sirius claims to be using this orbit because ir puts the satellites at higher inclination than standard geosynchronus meaning the signal tends to hit the ground at a more direct angle and does not suffer from as much inteference from buildings and thus requires fewer ground repeaters. The cool thing about the sirius configuration is that it happens to provide total coverage for all of the US and canada so i wouldnt be surprised if sirius had canada in mind for a market down the road.

both sound much better than FM. XM tends to sound a little bit better than sirius (this is very subjective so you really need to listen for yourself) but alot of the sound quality issues can be solved by refining the codecs which i suspect that they will do. the quality and selection of music is just amazing. I have not listened to FM radio for the past 15 years because the content sucks so bad. with both xm and sirius, they offer channels for just about every genre of music. for certain genres, the programming is much better on one than the other, for instance, sirius has much better programming on their dance/electronica channels than XM and also 2 more channels; not to say that xm is bad, they simply need to rework the content which they periodically do.

XM does have better equipment, they have delphi producing some very nice (and inexpensive equipment at that), plus also sony, pioneer, and a few other i cant remember..they also have a ton of accessories for cars, etc. sirius has fewer backers and the equipment is slightly higher priced but there are still quite a few manufacturers. so far xm has gotten more subscribers than sirius as they have been operating around 9 months longer but both appear to be viable; i personally wouldnt do a sub longer than a year with either service until both have been operating for a while. also you will want to try the service out before commiting long term.

[ilmickeyli]

I've been looking into purchasing a Pioneer 7500 Deck (Mp3 Head Unit) That has XM Built in.. Obviously with mp3 capability, I'll have plently of music.. But 10 bux or whatever a month for XM would be awesome.. But I like the Delphi reciever that shows every artist that is currently on, and you can click on that channel.. I havent seen the HU that I want working with XM, so I dont know/think it has any way to do something like that.. Either way, I'm torn between what to do..

[kzounds]

Well, This something I can help at. The Pioneer 7500 doesn't have XM built in. It's xm ready, which means you have to add an xm tuner to get xm. as far as the display, both the Delphi and the pioneer will show the same information, as long as you get the 910 tunner from pioneer. If you get the 900 tunner, you have an 8 character limitation. The last thing, the pioneer setup will sound better unless you get the Delphi thru an aux input to the deck.

[blub5555]

Interesting info. on both. Just wondering if you can get a clear signal reception on the island of Newfoundland. I'm looking for someone out there that has either and if they've proven that it works good on the island. Any reply would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, blub5555

[rob13572468]

also keep in mind that pioneer is discontinuing the xm add-on piece for now (GEX-P910) and does not currently have a replacement planned so if you want one you might want to get one quickly. the fm modulated version is still available in lots of places but the standard add-on is already getting hard to find.

[NEO66]

I have had XM for about a year now and it rocks. I was looking into Sirus but they were still coming online at the time and I also wanted an Alpine head unit. I have switched it to my new Dodge Ram pickup and it is awesome! The only channels that have commercials are the commercialized channel names like Disney (The kids love it) CNN, etc. The music channels I listen to never have commercials. My unit has the MP3 capabilities but honestly I rarely use it because I always find something good on the XM channels. I can select a station and leave it there for days.

Recently the not only put out the pricing for 2, 3, 4 & 5 years but also pricing for multiple units. They are offering $9.99 for the first unit (And well worth it) and $6.99 for units 2-5. The also have the XM PCR witch is a unit that plugs in to USB on your computer and is only $69.00. If this interest you check it out on the web site, it has some really cool features for surfing channels and saving favorites not just for channels but also for artist and songs.

I have really been happy with my XM, not that I don’t think either would be a great investment but I have been extremely happy with mine.

[ilmickeyli]

Ahh I see.. Thank you gentleman for the great information.. Any of you know for about how much the xm-tuner goes for for the pioneer?

Thanks

[NEO66]

They vary depending on the model. You can go to the Pioneer web site or try Crutchfield the have a wide variety of Satellite radios

[kzounds]

Not to argue, but I haven't heard anything about pioneer discontinuing that 910 tuner. I work for best buy as an installer and we just got the tuners about a month ago. They discontinued the 900 tuner, but it has since been replaced with the 910. The tuner goes for about $150 and the antenna goes for about $50 (you need both). other than that, I can honestly repeat the comments about not using the mp3 player. I have a sony 10 disc mp3 changer and I rarely use it.

[rob13572468]

Originally posted by kzounds
Not to argue, but I haven't heard anything about pioneer discontinuing that 910 tuner. I work for best buy as an installer and we just got the tuners about a month ago. They discontinued the 900 tuner, but it has since been replaced with the 910. The tuner goes for about $150 and the antenna goes for about $50 (you need both). other than that, I can honestly repeat the comments about not using the mp3 player. I have a sony 10 disc mp3 changer and I rarely use it.

yes, the standalone (gex-910) is discontinued because of problems they had with using it as an add-on (though i have 2 and know of 3 others that work beautifully, all in large A/V systems (avm-p9000 type systems). they may still be available in some of the larger chains for a while (like BB) since they tend to order them by the 100's/1000's but the local smaller guys are already out. im not sure about the FM mod version, that may still be available but i wont know until I ask the pioneer rep...

BTW: you can use the gex-fm903xm as an add-on as well if you cannot find the 910. it has the ip-bus capability built in but does not include the cables so you would need to order an additional ip bus cable (CD-IP600) and of course you wouldnt use the display controller or the middle 12v acc wire but it will work.

[badknine]

great post i was wondering what was a good xm thanks

[wrnglrptch]

Just for sh*ts and giggles,

Sirus is showing at a few trade shows, full motion video. :-) They say it will take 2 xtra sats. in the sky to meet their needs, but they have the technology in place to make it work... Will be interesting to see what video content they provide, and what people do with that technology. :-)

Patch

[Mort439]

So it seems pretty even on which one to go with Sirius/XM? I have to use one of those plug and play units with my vehicle(with the car installation kit). That being said which one is better in that end? Of course my cd/player does not have an aux audio input sooooo I have to get an FM Modulator..........figures.............Mort

[msepulvedaem]

Loco, how far have you gone to Mexico and still receive XM?
Thank you in advance

[shadowmite]

I have to say XM won me over! They are entering into a agreement with AVIS rent-a-car to give free service in all future rental cars, which I happened to get to drive one now... I guess it was a good move since they hooked me...

[PAVO]

Originally posted by msepulvedaem
Loco, how far have you gone to Mexico and still receive XM?
Thank you in advance

I live in Mexico City and it works ok, specially in flat areas , i've read that the signal is strong enough to get to Veracruz, but haven't tested yet.

[dustdevil]

I have the XM with and Alpine DVA-7996 In Dash DVD player, and XMA-T200 XM Tuner, along with a full Alpine system.. and asbolutely love it...

I bought it when my 330 CD collection was ripped off, and my insurance company paid me... so I decided not to by any more CDs, and go with XM and never look back... :)

I drove across the US with it, and never lost signal ONCE! :)

[barry_suther]

I live in Belize City, Belize Central America and I get Sirius here.

[dadymark]

I have had Sirius for a few weeks now - the only issue I have is the sound quality on the talk channels.It sounds like they are talking under water - it's not as noticeable on music stations.Has anyone noticed the same thing? Does XM have the same problem? Thank you - Mark

[porcinus]

After reading all the posts on this thread I have come up with a summary. I live in Vancouver I just started researching on xm and sirius. Talked to 3 different people at Future Shop, Ralph's Radio, and Best Buy. The guys at Ralph and BB told me the same thing: xm has better sound but sirius has better reception. Both also said they have customers who got xm came back a few weeks later to have their units removed and have switched to sirius, because they literally drove 3-5 blocks and static comes on in their xm units. They also said they sell way more sirius. The guy at FS said he sells more xm and he prefers that. Of course, this is all 2nd 3rd hand info.

Seems like there are more xm receivers on the market, and they look better. They are also a little cheaper, but not enough to influence my purchasing decision. Guy at Ralph's also said that xm is behind at least 3 to 4 months in terms of being able to improve their reception. So I hope to see more feedback from people who talked to dealers and get their advice - preferably those who are more knowledgable and not pushing either xm or sirius because of sales commissions, etc. 'til then, I'm going to wait a little longer before getting one over the other.

Also, after reading that xm has a few commercials in their broadcasts is disconcerning to me, esp. if I'm paying a subscription for the purpose of NOT getting commercials.

[superstar221]

For those that say Sirius talk sounds bad....try different frequencies...if it still sounds bad, get the antenna plug in....it's crystal clear and you can get it on ebay for like ten bucks. I just use the wireless transmitter, and it's all crystal clear, just play with the settings.

I have had XM in the past, and must say I will never have it again...they are cheats and they lied. Their music channels have commercials...how much more fraudulant advertising does it get??? No thanks...Sirius still has no commercials on their music channnels.

For those of you that want to keep XM (for whatever reason...) and have been a subscriber for over a year...call to cancel....they will send you to like three different people (tell each it costs too much and you want to cancel), but they will finally give it to you for $5 per month..for as long as you stick with them. It's true, I swear!!! I have several friends that have done so.

STill recommend SIrius tho, and $499 for a lifetime subscription is pretty reasonable when you look at it.