Both offer the same general content & coverage areas. Both are around the same price. Both offer cool home/mobile hardware. Anyone have either one? Any distunguishing features? I do know that Xm is partly owned by the evil Clear Channel, so I would normally like to keep my $ away from the bastards who have so greatly contributed to destroying free radio...
Clear Channel sucks the donkey dong. I've considered Sirius though. Sounds like it might be worth the $10 month, but I'd have to hear from existing customers before even considering it.
A friend of mine had both systems. He started out with Sirius, but it sucked so bad he sold his equipment on Ebay. He told me XM is better, but that it has its hangups as well. Hope that helps.
i have sirius and i think its wonderful. The quality is really good, almost cd quality. There are lots and lots of channels that I haven't even listened to yet.
Cool, thx guys, I might give Sirius a try b/c the more I delve into Clear Channel's tie0in w/ XM, the more apprehensive I get.
Tech TV did a comparison between the 2. They said that XM had better sound quality because Sirius used too much compression. He said that it sounded like some MP3s where all of the high end sounded"whushy".
I saw a review that was similar, but, in all honesty, with radio that really isn't a big issue, especially in the car where road and car noise consumes so much of the upper frequency response of a typical car stereo anyway. The comments I've read said that, despite the quality, it was FAR superior to the regular everyday radio.
Have XM and LOVE it. I've got a few friends with Sirius and they odn't like it at all. I know one guy that works in the car audio business and he thinks that Sirius could be going out of business soon, hence all of the ads all of a sudden to try to get sales up.
I have XM, and I personally love it. My father-in-law, however, has both, and he prefers XM over Sirius. It's probably too late, but there you have it.
Actually they are just about debt free due to a couple of huge stock issues and they are focusing on boosting sales. Sirrus is not going out of business.
I'm still researching - the only reason I even am conidering the XM system is b/c of the "boombox" you can buy & just plug in your XM receiever. Sirius has the same thing, just w/ one, smaller speaker. Some of you may not believe it, but Clear Channel's participation in XM is THE main reason I am leaning towards Sirius. I hate Clear Channel & all that they stand for. They have destroyed radio as I knew it, and are turning the music industry into a stal, homogenized piece of crap. A "Clear Channel is Evil" thread of its own may be better for this discussion...
I hate Clear Channel as well, but honestly, they don't really have any influence on the stations I listen to. I listen to an alternative rock station (XM 47) and it plays stuff that I didn't even know was released as a single. Queens of the Stone Age (early stuff), Cracker, early Radiohead, etc..
In addition to them being out of debt and boosting sales the government doesn't want either company to go out of business in order to prevent a monopoly. Sirius also has 3 satellites to XM's 1 satellite. I dunno if that really matters for reception, but I just know they have more. I've followed Sirius a lot and they seem to be under very good management now. They need 2 mln subscribers to be profitable versus XM who needs 3 mln. Both are growing very fast and have comparable deals with pretty much every car company out there. So either one is going to be stable.
