Sirius satellite should be considered a great complement to your audio system, whether in home or car. It should not be considered an end all to music selection. It will not replace CDs, mp3s or typical over the air radio. Once this expectation is established, it's good to see Sirius as a decent addition to those who love music.
First off, how much does it cost? You'll need a receiver, then a docking system for the home or office. Then there is a setup fee. So you're looking at a little under $200 to get started. Quite a huge investment for just checking out a new type of radio. I would advise getting Sirius professional installed in your car, unless you don't mind wire flaying around when you drive while looking at a tacking do it yourself setup. Also, if you want both home and office, you'll have to buy a boombox. This can run to about $350 total. Quite pricey, especially when it doesn't include any monthly fees.
Secondly, how about the reception? It's surprisingly well in my car, but does suffer some dark spots when you go under a tunnel or when travelling through a tree line street. However, I was unable to get any signal in neither my home nor my office, so don't automatically assume that it will work at your home. The only consolation is that if you sign up for Sirius, you get monthly web access.
Thirdly, how about the playlist? The best way to describe Sirius's playlist is probably a lot breadth, but not quite a lot of depth. For music, unless you love every type of music available, you'll actually only have about 10 music stations to listen to. For example, all Classical, Latin, Electronic, Jazz, Children and Love stations are absolutely useless to me as this not my type of music. In terms of sports, it's got the NFL, NBA, and if ever, NHL. The best game for radio, baseball, is with XM satellite, which is a huge bummer. Many of the news stations and entertainment stations are just audio replays of audio stations, so it's got commercials and aren't altogether suited for radio. For example, you'll hear, "take a look at this replay". Well, I can't look, it's radio. All in all, the talk and music is the equivalent of doubling the FM and AM radio stations of a big city. You'll still listen to your normal stations, but the number of stations will be expanded.
Fourthly, how about the receiver itself? It's pretty good. The display is huge. You get to see the band or song name before switching to a different station. I love that. It can store 20 songs, which, when one of the songs comes up, the receiver will beep and give you the option of changing to that station. The only small problems were that sometimes the stored songs didn't come up, and the turn wheel will lacks a grip, which is annoying when driving.
Fifthly, what were some of the major problems of Satellite radio? Besides the high cost for the equipment, the fact that they charge an activation fee was annoying. I'm willing to pay a monthly fee, do I need to add another fee to that? Secondly, the nickel and diming continues with the fact that the receiver contains no basic antenna nor power supply. You must buy a docking kit no matter what. I bought a car docking kit, but it only had a power supply for the cigarette lighter, which meant that all setup has to be done outdoors, in the car, with the car running. I couldn't even test it to see if it would work indoors, so I had to buy a boombox to test, only to find out it didn't work, and then return the boombox. A cheap home AC/DC power supply included in the docking kit would have saved me hours without costing me fifty dollars for the other docking system. Also, the customer service is not that great. The people on phone are nice, but you have to endure the navigation system along with a large self-serving tirade about how well Sirius radio is before you can get to the menu. In order to get stream player access, you have to e-mail them for the password, but no one bothered to reply to my e-mail, so I had to call them again. When the company won't give you the password for the free web access, and won't reply when you follow the website instructions, it gets annoying. Another thing is the repetitiveness and limiting factors of the playlist. Some of the bands I'm interested in, Carbon Leaf, the Streets, Perfect Circle, Tool groups that I thought should appear for paid radio, are not really there. However, Ashlee Simpson, Maroon 5 and Leonard Skynard are pretty much on 24/7. Not quite the original playlists I was hoping to get.
Finally, what were some of the things that surprised me? First off, it's still cool. To be free of Clear Channel's chokehold on music radio is great. The web access is free. XM charges you about four dollars a month, making it more expensive monthly if you use web access. If you get Dish Network, the music stations are there already to listen through over your television. If you don't get Dish Network, you can get a free preview via the web for three days. Nice. Finally, I've become acquainted with many bands that I would not have known or just barely remember. It's nice to hear Traffic, Public Enemy, Guns and Roses, Flogging Molly, N.W.A., etc.
So, all in all, it's a nice complement, but it's no magic musical panacea.
Pros:
Song preview
20 Memory Storage
Large display
Free online access after signing up
Free 3-day online preview
Cons:
Nickel and diming
Very repetitive song list
Entertainment and News is Just a Replay of Television
Customer Service is lacking
Signal cannot be received in many places.
Minimum Setup Cost ~ 200 dollars
Optimal Setup Cost ~ 350 dollars
Monthly Cost ~ 13 dollars
The first thing I'd like to give here is a warning NPR lovers beware. The NPR stream available here is probably not what you expect. Check out NPR /Sirius websites to see what it offers before buying. NPR was my biggest reason for buying Sirius over xm.
Overall though, I am thrilled, the BBC stream is tremendous, the music channels are varied and play a great collection of music inside their genres. The sports channels let me hear NHL and NBA games now and will let me hear every NFL game.
The product is good, not perfect, but well conceived. Setup was simple and 10 minutes after purchase I was up and running, the auto adaptor broadcasts on the four 88.x fm channels.
In short I recommend the product, but educate yourself carefully to make sure you know what you're getting.
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Let me start by saying that I've listened to both XM and Sirius, and Sirius' programming is far superior. The streamhosts, though they do talk a little bit, bring a ton of knowledge and programming savvy to the streams. And the variety is very good. And I really like that subscribers can listen to the music channels online for free.
As for the Audiovox receiver: I bought the receiver, the car kit and the home kit. I'm giving it 4 stars because it's pretty good and easy to operate. I like the "memo" feature that allows you to find your favorite songs no matter what stream they're on. And the remote control is nice for home use.
But it does have some annoying issues that should give most people pause.
As mentioned by several others here, the tuner runs very hot during continuous use. Don't make the mistake of leaving the radio on without the car running. Mine got so hot sitting in my parked car (it was about 80 degrees that day) that the screen blacked out and it wouldn't work until I shut it down and let it cool off.
I also moved the receiver and antenna from one car to another one, and in the process broke the antenna connector plug. It's really poorly made. The jack is difficult to plug and unplug, and there's a weak point that breaks easily. You have to really tug on it to unplug it. I tried soldering the plug back together, but that didn't work. I'm going to have to spend $50 to get a replacement antenna. Solution: If you have two cars, buy two car kits.
And now that Sirius is on Dish Network, it defeats the purpose of having a receiver in my living room.
In hindsight, I should have bought a car-only receiver that hooked into my stereo.
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The receiver has two issues that have to be considered. First this guy gets really hot. Both in the car and in the home. Heat was the cause of a failure of this item in my house (the fm modulator died) Audiovox did send me a free replacement, but I was out of use for a few weeks. The other issue is signal strength. The FM modulator could use a boost. When traveling, I have to change the frequency to get a solid signal. Otherwise I get interference from other stations in the 88.1 to 88.7 range. Is there something better? I tried the JVC and it's cooler, but the signal strength of the FM modulator is no better.
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First XM or Sirrius I chose sirius only for the programming I was leaning towards XM but the entire NFL plus WABC out of New York and 790 the Zone out of Atlanta made me choose sirius.
I bought it mainly for the news talk -comedy channels but the Music Stations are great My daughter and I can finally agree on some of the music channels which is a nice change. The traffic / weather reports are much more detailed than on the standard Atlanta radio.
The sound is great in the car. It made my 98 Neon (please don't laugh) a great little car again that is fun to drive. The hour drive to work is enjoyable and more relaxing. I also bought the boombox and move the unit from the car to the boombox easily.
I rarely lose signal and then it's when I'm parked under an overhang like a gas station filling up. Every once in a while the signal may or may not drop while driving under very heavy trees and then just a split second. On the drive to work I expected to lose signal in the parking deck, but there must be a terrestial antennea nearby and no signal loss. I do not even need the antennae on the boombox at work.
The car adapter that came with this knocks a point off. It is an FM modulator. Meaning I tune the radio to 88.1 (or .3 .5 .7) depending on which frequncy I use on the adpater. Atlanta has an 88.1 and a 88.5 radio station so I set the PNP2 set to 88.3. 99.5% it works great. But 88.5 must boost the power output and bleeds into the 88.3 band which causes very minor static sometimes. Since Satellite radio is so much better than FM I removed the car antennae completely I don't listen to anything else but the Sirius Radio.
