I never cared much for online radio from XM. my PnP is hooked right into my PC's sound system and works great with better quality than Online will have!

 

i've searched xm and sirius forums (where many people have both services)and found the general consensus to be that for hip-hop/rap, xm cannot touch sirius. although i've known it for a while, it didn't bother me so much until xm sent me a letter saying they were raising my rates. let me get this striaght, "your urban stations are getting worse and worse AND you want to raise my rates?!" that was the last straw. i didn't just jump on the bandwagon recently like a lot of people. i saw the potential when it was first introduced and took the chance. and over 4 years, XM has gotten lazy (at least with urban music). i'm switching to sirius.

 

i would say only go with one if your going to get a dedicated setup. that was the only time i actualy like my xm radio. otherwise very unsatisfied with the sound quality of the portables.

 

XM had both definately XM for me..

 

Out of all the XMs ive installed over the years and as long as I have had it, I have never heard the PB channel. Anyone know whats on it? Probably just a bunch of talking but I never heard it

 

While I'm not completely into R&B/Hip Hop/Rap. XM raised their rates to go completely commercial free and to offer services that we normally had to pay for as an extra.

If you wanted to keep your lower rate at least for a little longer, you couldhave pre-paid your service.

Additioanlly with the new MLB games, and College football channels, I'm sure that wasn't cheap to get exclusive rights to...

All in all, I think the price increase was justified.

Now it's up to YOU to decide which programming you prefer.

 

Neither service is completely commercial free. Both have all commercial free music but both also have short, infrequent commercials on their other channels.

 

Correct. If your listening to CNN you'll have commercials. But if your listening to an XM channel, then you shouldn't have any commercials. Where before some of the XM channels did have commercials.

 

My XM subscription has expired but I'm pretty sure that even XM specific (non-music) channels such as the two comedy channels, the sports channels, and the talk channels still have a few commercials.

 

i have xm, and it gets quiet repetative, and i dont like the playlists much. i listened to it alot when i first got it (xmas time). but now i dont listen to it much.

 

Cannot avoid them on the News channels that are from major outlets (CNN, FOX, ABC, ect) they either have commercials in the broadcast that paid the News station to air them or XM has to put some in to fill what would otherwise be dead air.

 

Here's my take:

Satellite radio is great if you live in an area without many local stations (or stations that play stuff you like). It's also great if you want to listen to baseball games from your home team and you don't get those anymore. Or if you're a howard stern junkie. But in my experience, if I want music quality I'll just go with a cd or mp3, and if I want the game or random stuff I'll just get the local FM channels. XM's Alternative/Rock/Punk stations are absolutely horrid, with "Ethel" being the only decent one. It's great for road trips, but loses reception going between trees and doesn't have that great of a navigation interface. The one my friend has you can't see the song playing until you switch to that channel. Since I'm in NoCal with tons of great local stations, even if Xm was free I'd still use FM. Haven't used Sirius, but I'd assume it's similar.

Satellite Pros:
Good for road trips
Good quality
Many stations (if you don't have manY FM)
All the baseball games (XM)
Howard Stern (Sirius)
All the football games (Sirius)
"Wow" factor

Cons:
No local information
Crappy Rock/Alt/Punk selection (XM, dunno about sirius)
$$$
Limits headunit possibilities, unless you want multiple widgets
Isn't as cool as it should be (example: seeing what song is playing before switching channels)
Isn't really much better than FM, unless you fall into one of the categories above (need baseball or you're in a rural area)
They aren't "commercial free". Xm's constantly pumping itself with airtime you're paying for.

 

I have Sirius. It's the best $100 dollars I've ever spent. Especially for the NFL, NHL and College Basketball. They have traffic every 5 minutes. Stern comes on later this year.
XM tends to be twitchy. They charge for extras and so on. And they were running commercials for a while. Anything is better then the crap on FM. Oh yeah and the uncensored comedy stations rock.

 

There are weather & traffic stations on XM (starting at channel 210, I think). I dont know about Sirius.

Some XM units have that feature. The one you sampled (and mine, earlier cheaper one) dont. I dont know about Sirius.

FM has more comercials than contant. I couldnt stand the crap most stations played anyway (I dont like most of today's music and I'm only 25).

The music channels are on XM comercial free. The comercials are generally rare on the other channels (I not certain about the news/sports channels since i dont listen to them). Supposedly all the channels on Sirius are comercial free. Either way, its a fraction of the comercials of FM.

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Whichever satellite provider you look at, they are worlds better than FM.

 

I want to get satellite radio for my car and have been leaning towards sirius, espcially since howard stern has signed on to it. I also been previewing the music and I like what they play. I mainly listened to the heavy metal and rap stations though.

 

i'm not sure about metal but as far as rap/hip hop, sirius is the way to go, hands down.

 

XM doesn't seem to have any metal music at all actually.