XM vs. Sirius: Tale of the Transmitters
Satellite radio isn't just for gear-heads. We size up the two competing services, and tell you how to get hooked up
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Alpine CDA-9833 Head Unit
This in-dash set is XM ready |
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April 5, 2004
For too long, the musical entertainment in our family sedan was hit or miss—mostly miss. Too lazy to add a CD player to our 1994 Buick or to grab MP3s off my husband’s portable player, I’d stick to the FM dial, bouncing between pre-programmed stations or jabbing at the Seek button to escape the ads. I knew things had to change when I caught my 3-year-old singing along with “Carry On Wayward Son.” Toto I could handle, but I couldn’t take Kansas anymore.
Enter satellite radio. Now I don’t have to put up with the predictable playlists and tired standards of New York City’s FM stations, or the dozens of commercials they crank out every hour. The two competing services, XM Satellite Radio and Sirius, are both so terrific I can’t believe I waited this long to check them out. It’s what upgrading to digital cable must be like for someone who’s used to rabbit ears.
The promise is simple: loads of music, sliced and diced by decade, genre and sub-genre, from blues to Bluegrass, Elmo to opera. There’s news, sports, comedy and talk radio too—no ads, no static. (XM eliminated its few minutes of ads in February.) It’s also radio-without-borders: the satellites beam the signals across the continental U.S., meaning you can listen to the same station from Maine to Montana.
When the services first launched—XM in November 2001, Sirius is the fall of 2002—they caught on fairly quickly among early adopters and gear-heads. Recently, though, they’ve begun to attract a broader audience. XM signed up its one-millionth subscriber last October, and by February the number had shot up to 1.5 million. Sirius still lags far behind, with 261,000 users as of Dec. 31, 2003, but the company projects it will have 1 million subscribers by the end of 2004.
One reason more mainstream consumers may be biting: while subscription fees have remained fairly steady, the cost of the hardware needed to play satellite radio has started to slip. A simple plug-and-play set-up for the car can now be had for under $200. And some new options have been introduced that make it easier for users to keep tuning in as they go from their cars to their boats to their beach blankets.
Content also continues to expand and improve. In March, for example, both services started delivering local traffic and weather reports for major metropolitan areas (XM has 16 channels dedicated to specific markets; Sirius covers 20 areas on 10 channels).
The joy of satellite radio is that you get all this great stuff
without having to do any of the work. Let the control freaks transport their personal music collections from their computers to their cars (see next story). If I had the time and energy to be my own deejay, I’d have purchased an iPod by now. This way, I get to discover
new bands and explore different genres. And because satellite radios display the name of the song and artist being streamed, I can catch up on what everybody
else seems to already know (this is the Red Hot Chili Peppers?).
Sold? Here’s what you need to know to get started:
THE SERVICES
Once you’ve decided that you want satellite radio, the first thing to do is pick a service: XM or Sirius. (There are only two national providers, because there’s only enough bandwidth to accommodate two.) XM costs $9.99 a month, or a few bucks less if you pre-pay a year or more. Sirius charges subscribers $12.99 per month, or $120 for a year pre-paid in full.
In my own tests, Sirius edged out XM on both performance and song selection. The signal sounded stronger, both in the car cruising in and around New York City and at home on the 23rd floor of my high-rise Brooklyn apartment building. I had to fiddle with the placement of my XM radio antenna a bit longer to get a signal, and even when I thought I had it in a good spot, it would still cut out occasionally—but only for a brief moment, and not so often that I really minded. To be honest, I’m splitting hairs. There are many variables that can affect reception: location, landscape, how successful you are at keeping the kids’ paws off your gear. And, to be fair, the car antennas are supposed to be mounted on the roof, and I had my swinging from the rearview mirror. Someone comparing these services in Des Moines—or down the road, for that matter—could get the opposite results.
I was impressed at the reception from both while driving around Lower Manhattan. Both services work well in concrete jungles like New York because they have land-based equipment that repeats the satellite signal as short-range radio broadcasts in spots where skyscrapers would otherwise block it out.
In the end, it’s the programming that really counts. With Sirius, I tended to stick with Alt Nation and Totally 70s, finding little need to stray. I thought XM had some decent stations too, though I found myself channel-surfing more often in search of something I liked. But my tastes are my tastes; the best way to choose which service is right for you is to peruse the channel listings and descriptions on each service’s website, and go with what grabs you. Remember, there is more than just music. XM has NASCAR and old-time radio serials like the Lone Ranger; Sirius has NPR, Court TV, live NBA and NHL game coverage and, starting this fall, pro football.
THE HARDWARE
The hardware choices can be confusing, but the XM and Sirius websites do a decent job of presenting the options. Several consumer electronics manufacturers make satellite radio gear for both XM and Sirius, but the equipment is not interchangeable. (The FCC has asked the companies to work toward a common standard, but that’s several years off.) Crutchfield.com, an online and catalog electronics retailer, has a wide selection, and terrific car audio search tools; also see the helpful guide on sister site crutchfieldadvisor.com.
If you’re buying a new car, there’s a good chance you can have satellite radio factory- or dealer-installed, and get a few months of service free to boot. Honda, Acura and GM (including Chevy, Cadillac and other brands) offer XM in many new models. Daimler Chrysler, BMW and Ford (Volvo, Mazda, Jaguar) offer Sirius. Nissan and Volkswagen offer both.
There are several ways to add satellite radio to the car you
already own. Alpine and others make all-in-one car stereos with built-in satellite radio receivers that cost around $350. The install will run you around $75.
(Plug your zip code into localinstaller.com to find a pro near you.) If your car stereo has an auxiliary
input, you can get a $100 receiver with built-in controls (like the Delphi SkyFi for XM) and use an RCA cable to connect. If your car stereo is “satellite
radio ready,” you can put the receiver in the trunk.
Plug-and-play solutions are more popular. You can get a car kit for $50 or $70 that lets you connect the receiver through the cassette deck. If you don’t have one, or don’t trust it—I haven’t used mine since it ate the New Wave mix tape I recorded in 1988—you can get a wireless FM transmitter. I liked this quick-and-dirty set-up: you snap your receiver into the cradle, plug the power supply into the cigarette lighter, hang the antenna next to the fuzzy dice, tune the car radio to an empty spot on the FM dial (88.1 worked great for me) and you’re groovin’ in no time. Supposedly the sound isn’t quite the “near-CD” quality you’d get over a hard-wired connection, but it sounded fine to my untrained ears, and still noticeably better than regular radio.
What’s great about the plug-and-play gear is that your satellite radio doesn’t have to stay in the car. But you’d need a separate home kit, with different cradle, antenna and power supply, to connect to a home stereo (that’s another $50). Going on a picnic? Get a boom box. Delphi’s “portable audio system” for XM costs $100. Audiovox makes one for Sirius for the same price. Receiver not included.
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