Is XM or Sirus better?

[genius]

Does anyone have any information on the costs and the coverage of the two? Also is either cheaper if you are planning to have the radio in both your home and two cars.

[Wheaty]

1. Try this site

This many help

http://www.xmorsirius.com

[dno]

2. Sirius is better IMO

XM Hardware is made by Delphi which is exporting American jobs at an alarming rate. Plus Clear Channel is a major investor in XM. F XM and Clear Channel! Sirius also airs the entire Air America lineup, XM doesn't. The hardware and subscription prices are similar although Sirius has a $50 rebate right now.

[BlueEyedSon]

3. Sirius

XM is part owned by clearchannel
XM carries an edited (condensed) version of AAR
XM has commercials on some poof the music streams
XML is a teeny bit cheaper

Sirius has a Left Wing talk stream in addition to AAR
Sirius has their own GLBT talk stream
Sirius carries BBC, 2xNPR, PRI, AAR (in its entirety)
Sirius music is ad-free

[whodiedandmadeUSgod]

4. Thanks for the info

I almost bought XM on Monday. I don't mean to be intrusive but could you share what the monthly subscription rate is for Sirius?

[Wheaty]

6. Sirius is running a deal

Its normally $12.95 a month but if you pay for 12 months you get 3 months free which works it out to 10.36 a month.

[BlueEyedSon]

8. IIRC XM is $9.95/mo, don't know about their yearly rate.

The rates are not secret, just go to
http://www.sirius.com
http://www.xmradio.com

[Pithlet]

10. I believe XM is going commercial free

The only stations that would have commercials are radio streams that have them anyway. I'm not sure if that has started yet because all the stations I listen to were always commercial free anyway.

We have XM in our home and in my car, and my husband has Sirius in his car. Both are great; Sirius has better talk radio by far. XM has a bigger selection of music stations, but Sirius is catching up. I like the XMs receiver better.

[BlueEyedSon]

11. XM is Evil. End of rant.

[Pithlet]

12. Yeah, I know.

Clear Channel, and all that. CC is evil. If I had to do it all over again, I'd probably get Sirius for myself.

[BlueEyedSon]

13. :) :) :)

I chose based on politics, technology be damned!

:) :)

[Mr_Lefty]

5. Sirius

Sirius has better content- XM had better radios, but Sirius is making up ground on radio quality.

[keithyboy]

7. Sirius...more customer friendly and not a Murdoch slut.

Excellent programming.

[GreenPartyVoter]

9. XM has better compression and thus better quality sound

according the Patrick on the ScreenSavers on TechTV.

[DancingBear]

14. Here are the costs on Sirius

I have it both in the home and the car.

Monthly: 12.95 for first unit, 6.99 for second - doesn't matter which unit (home/car) you designate as the primary one.

If you pay up front for a year (12.95x12) Sirius will give you 15 months for 12, which comes out to 10.56 a month (I think - no calculator handy).

I live waaaaaaayyyy out in the country, and I lose the Sirius (home) signal twice a day for about 3-4 minutes each. I am sure I could solve this problem by mounting the antenna pod outside, but right now it just sits on the window sill. I never lose the car signal.

Compression of signal/sound quality seems about the same to me. XM is based out of DC, and Sirius NYC, so it is mostly a function of where the signal repeaters are. Unless you are running the signal through some seriously high end electronics you won't hear much (if any) difference.

[Born Free]

15. At this time I would recommend Sirius

We purchased two XM radios for Air America and a little disappointed with the programming on XM as it is not all Air America, early morning when I listen most they run Alan Colmes and it is very poor, mostly ads for Fox news and mostly guest that are right wing and they beat up on Alan Colmes. One of the radios we purchased was the new Alpine radio with built in XM tuner, with custom installation it was relatively expensive, too expensive to give up without trying to get XM to at least drop the Fox news so called liberal show "Alan Colmes"