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I know that technically it's only available in the US, but does anybody here have it?

I am so ****in sick of commercials and crappy music on the radio. I REALLY want to get this, but don't want to comit if it's shitty.

 
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I have Sirius and love it.... XM has commercials on most stations, so that may not help ya much there, Sirius is entirely commercial free.... Sirius comes in digital clear, CD quality... XM the same.... Only time I have reception problem is when I'm sitting under something, like at a stop light under a bridge.... Once you get it, you'll never go back to regular radio.....

 
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My friend has it and he loves it. I think he has XM though.....He pays $30 every 3 months for it.

 
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The only thing with going with Sirius is that my Pioneer HU already has built in functionality for XM, I just need to buy the receiver.

I'll have to check their website to see about the commercials.

 
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Like I have said before, XM is fantastic. The commercials are not the same type you would hear on regular FM radio, they are very limited, and they are not on every channel. Even the commercials are pretty cool & of course sound great since they want to show off with the new digital radio format. They are not a distraction from the music at all like Sirius wants you to believe. Both XM & Sirius are great, digital radio is great. Just don't let the "no commercial" hype from Sirius turn you away from XM. You will love it. You would not believe how much there is to listen too. Good stuff and a lot of it 24 hours a day anywhere with great sound.

 
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if you travel alot, you will love it!! i have XM and love it!!! the radio is great and very clear and worth the 9 bucks a month.

Injen

 
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How often does it repeat?

I listen to the dance channel on my satalitte at home, and I hear the same songs too often.

 
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How much it repeats depends a lot on your taste in music. If you have a wide variety of music that you like, you can almost always find something you haven't heard for a while on there. With 101 channels, it's hard not to find something. I've only found myself turning off XM 2 or 3 times in the 2 months I've had it due to not liking what I'm hearing. You will not be sorry if you get it though.

A word to the wise for any of you who own a Sony head unit and are thinking about getting the Sony add-on XM tuner for it....

As I'm sure you all know, the FM antenna for our cars is in the back glass. Well combine that with either of the two "through-glass" antennas for XM, and you'll lose your FM because with Sony, whenever your HU is on, so is your XM and the RF field that is created by the the antenna prevents the FM antenna from working. So if you have a Sony and are gonna get the add on tuner, don't get a glass mounted antenna or don't mount it to the rear glass. Just my .02

 
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xm is 9 a month, how much is sirius?

 
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someone told me sirus was 13 a month.....but i would guess it would be very close to xm's price. My friend has xm and he loves it. he has not bought a cd in the past 6 mths b/c there is no need b/c there is always something on xm....the stand up comedy raw station is great!!!

 
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I have XM and it is great. TZhe commercials only last a few seconds You will not even notice them. I have the Pioneer DEH-5500 and it works greatwith XM radio. I would recommend buying an XM ready headunit so its a cleaner install.

 
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XM is $9.99 a month, with an activation fee of $14.99 (or 9.99 if you do it from the web), sirius is $12.95 a month with a $15 activation fee (or $5 online). XM offers 33 commercial free channels, Sirius has 60 commercial free channels (talk/news channels are not commercial free, only music ones are). Commercials on both are EXTREMEMLY limited (like 2 - 4 minutes an hour). Right now you can get a $100 rebate on some Audiovox, Clarion, Delphi, Jensen, or Panasonic Sirius tuners. The kenwood sirius tuner that works with kenwood decks is only $50 now. XM is offering $30 rebate on Delphi and Pioneer tuners. The only one that is not even close to reasonable is the Alpine XM tuner at $250.

I dont have it yet, but everyone i have talked to that has it absolutly LOVES it, so i really plan on gettin it soon. We sell and have both on display where i work, and we listen to XM more, but they both have very similar programming and channels.

 
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Great info guys! I ordered it. I just hope they'll ship it to Canada!

 
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If you guys wanna know anything more about XM, check out www.xmfan.com, they have the answers to just about any question you might have. They also have a store and sell some of the XM hardware, usually cheaper than stores. You will not be sorry once you experience XM.

 
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where does everyone have their antenna installed? i read that having tint on the window the antenna is installed can reduce reception and is prone to dropouts, any truth to that?

 
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you can't get xm or sirius in canada.

 
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i just wanted to throw my .02 cents in here and say that XM sounds pretty cool. i right now have the xplod mp3 player installed and have been happy with it but am also looking at nicer looking once from jvc and such. for me, my mp3 player was one of the best investments i have ever done. 10hrs of music and all of it in good quality and the music i get doesnt cost anything either... its perfect. i usually listen to djsets that are 1-2hours long so it really is worth it there.

if i get xm i will wait a while, let the prices come down for everything and maybe some more stations will come too.

but if not XM then i would really suggest an mp3 player. i guess whatever u do u wont/cant regret it.

maybe get both.

 
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not 100% but i believe ^^^ to be not true, i know for sure u can not subscribe to xm or sirius in canada but if u register it under an american adress u can still get it, that goes to be as far as i hrd and it would make sense, i think

 
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Just don't expect XM to be cd quality. It's close, but not as good. Also, alot of the stations play songs that aren't very popular. Only a few good stations for new music. It's still good if you spend alot of time driving.

 
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if you are at all interested in sound quality you should shy away from XM or sirius. i have tried them both in my car and have been so annoyed by the lack of sound quality. frankly it sucks, and isnt worth a monthly fee. the programming is alright, but the lack of quality is inexcuseable. no way does it even sound near FM quality, let alone cd. if you have ever heard a bad sounding MP3 at about 96 kbps, this is what sat radio sounds like. it would be a bummer to spend $1000+ on a great stereo (speakers, amps, etc.) to just use it to play something as substandard as this. but anyhow, that is just a matter of my opinion. i believe it is VERY MISLEADING that they advertise CD QUALITY. ha! oh and the digital cable/sat tv music only channels are MUCH more cd quality.

 
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fashonsucker - sounds like the problem might be with your sound system because those are very inaccurate statements as far as my experience with sat radio. The sound quality is excellent and has been excellent in every car that I have heard it in. Not as good as FM? You definitely have problems somewhere else in your system. Not trying to criticize here, just pointing out that your remarks are way off base from everything I've heard & listened to with sat radio. What is your system configuration? equipment, install, etc.?

 
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fashonsucker is right. When I first installed XM I noticed a dramatic decrease in quality compared to cd. I can even agree that FM is better in terms of sound reproduction. Most XM stations sound like they're missing higher frequencies or have too much bass. With FM, it would sound almost like CD quality if you took away the static. I know there is nothing wrong with my sound system or my xm because CDs sound excellent and I installed the XM myself (very easy). Oh and my setup uses the IP-BUS on the pioneer deck I have, which is the cleanest way to set it up.

 
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The sound quality is excellent, but to a few people who have very sensitive ears, it might not be. XM cuts off at 15,000 Hz, the human ear is supposed to be able to hear up to 20,000 Hz. It all depends on the music you listen to and how sensitive your ears are. Keep in mind that XM is also compressed, like an MP3, so there will be times when you will notice some of the "sounds of compression." As an XM subscriber, I am very pleased with the service. I agree that at times, you do hear the compression, but it's minimal. If you are noticing a lot of poor quality, it may be your signal strength as well. But aside from the quality, which I think is pretty damn good, the programming is great. 99% of the time I can find something I like on one of the 100 channels. It's great. I think XM does pretty good though, 'cause when at Circuit City one time, I compared the sound from XM with the sound from Sirius and XM sounded better by far. Sirius sounds like a highly compressed MP3, like fashionsucker says about XM. I think XM has far more superior sound quality. But if your ears are really that sensitive, you may wanna stick to CD, but you'll be missing out on some great programming.

 
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I agree with chillin on the fact that XM sounded better than Sirius after a LOT of side to side listening. Also, are you guys using an FM modulation setup for your sat radio? I'm talking about the type of stuff that requires you to plug a cassette looking thing into your HU, or something along those lines.

 
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yeah, well, ummm.... i just dont like making a really nice SQ system in my car and then PAYING to listen to some **** sounding source material... does anyone else think it sounds like a real player internet radio broadcast (like a 96 or 128 kbps one)... bah i dont know... i DO really think their concept and programming were GREAT, just really really dissappoints me that they didnt do it right and opted for so much compression... id much rather listen to a great sounding college radio station for good programming and much better sound quality. and BTW, i dont figure my ears are really sensitive, maybe im picky... but you can run all the figures you want and compare xm to cd and still find that xm sounds way worse than CD, it is a FACT. and i dont mean to flame or anything SQcivic, but maybe your civic isnt very SQ, if you cant tell the diff... or maybe you have all that loudness DSP EQ and bullshit processing on yr head unit all on so you cant even tell the XM from your cds (lack of) quality... word up, sorry for my mean rant, but it had to be done... saving the masses from this unhappy medium... so it will fail and they will have to realize that people wont settle for their substandard quality and they will be forced to do it right. yep BOYCOTT this ****! buy cds... or download 192+ kbps mp3s and burn them to cd... because those sound much better than XM and are FREE! *** the music industry because they've ben fukking you for years! yeah.... and DIY!

 
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my friend just got sirius and got it professionaly installed and he noticed that the quality was pretty poor so he took it back to where he got it installed and they said there are different modes to set depending on the car and now it sounds a lot better.

 
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dude, relax. you're entitled to your opinion. what XM hardware are you using? if you head over to www.xmfan.com you will see that there are hardware issues that generally can be resolved. some of the XM hardware out on the market is known to decompress poorly. when it was sold to you, you should've noted that XM advertises near-cd quality audio. I specifically remember reading that when I bought mine. so if you were expecting CD quality, you shouldn't have bought it. XM is compressed the way it is to allow for 100 channels of programming within the bandwidth XM is allotted by the FCC. Just calm down before you bash something that really isn't so bad.

 
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chillin i am toadally aware of all that stuff about their bandwidth but damn... why roll something out this major and take such a gamble if they werent tops and as good as they could be. anyhow i had the skifi unit, which was connected directly to my head units rca inputs. yes i realize maybe the unit isnt as good at decompressing or whatever, but still, the sound is unacceptable, and sure some channels are better than others... the jazz sounds the best to me and the xmlm sounds the worst... on the jazz though the swirly mp3 compression sound definitely ruins like ride cymbals and stuff... and the XMLM is laughibly really damn bad, like way too much compression with a super mondo mega bass X3 loudness curve on it... weak **** bro ';specially since they played some good hardcore **** occasionally... but yes, like anything, try it, make sure you buy it somewhere you can return it to... maybe im just a snob or what... not sure... just a car audio enthusiast...

 
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wow, you guys made me want to get it

 
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I'm running a pioneer XM receiver directly to a pioneer hu with an IP BUS connection and I still notice the lack of sound quality. I'm not that picky with quality, but with a decent aftermarket stereo setup anyone will notice the difference. It's not just poor quality, but a lakc of proper equalization. Some stations have way too much base and others don't have enough treble. It is obvious. And when it says near cd quality, I was expecting just that. What I got wasn't even near radio quality. They just picked a bad encoding format (aac). This isn't even that big of a deal, though. I still listen to it because it offers more choice when on a long road trip.