illy5603

My antenae is on the roof in the center by the hatch glass, not near the t-tops. Some people have mounted it in the bar between the two t-tops as well. You will want it as high up as possible, it loses signal enough around trees, buildings and taller vehicle as it is.

Just throwing this out there, anyone out there going into sat radio thinking the sound is going to be good just because it is digital is in for a shock. The sound quality is HORRIBLE and the better your system the more it will tick you off. The sound quality is about the same as what their free web trial sounds like, which is, well, horrible. At low volumes it is tolerable but I prefer CD's or the I-Pod. I will not be renewing sirius unless they improve the sound quality. If they have to cut back on stations, so be it.

WILWAXU

iTrader: (6)

My antenna is mounted inside the rear wing. It's mounted close to car's antenna so FM modualtion is good too.

WhiteBird00

iTrader: (4)

That's interesting...especially since the satellite antenna has nothing to do with the FM modulation (the wireless modulator is internal to the satellite radio - it doesn't use an external antenna). Putting the radio itself closer to the antenna might improve reception but it would be awkward to have to go into the hatch to change channels.

jaybob

My Sirius sound quality was pretty decent with the FM modulator, but now I have it hard-wired to my auxilary port and it is CD quality. I would say that my Starmate's quality was not quite as good my S50 though.

WhiteBird00

iTrader: (4)

I experienced the same thing... I just replaced my StarMate with an XACT unit and the sound quality is much better.

Nova5

Yea that will be a constant change. each device will have its own sound quality output. so some of the people who complain about lacking sound quality on one service or another are likely victims of low quality parts in their device or connection style.

I've got a whine in mine but its from the vehicle itself. i need to isolate the grounds for the inline amp (the Delphi SkyFi's biggest failing is a low sound output level from its connection) Skyfi, Radio HU, to a common point. instead of 3 different locations.

Nova5

Try a different Sirius unit, different connection method. FM Modualtion and Cassette connections are inherently low quality. Direct Line connections will give you the best sound (as long as you avoid multiple location grounds..
)

Nova5

That depends really. the SkyFi2 has a FM loop antenna in the Sat antenna wire. the two signals are so vastly different that they don't interfere with each other even traversing the same connection to the radio.

Ramshaft

iTrader: (2)

had both hated xm sirius is so much better the music the comedy every thing is better. plus the customer service is better than xm easier to deal with.

04goatinmass

i agree stern is enough reason alone to have sirius.throw in the nfl package and its a dream come true.also if anyone is interested they have the playboy channel but id rather see not hear

03NHSilvy

iTrader: (1)

For rock I think XM is better. I used to work at Circuit City and listened to both a BUNCH before going with XM. XM has more rock channels, and it seems a deeper library of music as well. My favorite channel is Fungus, which is mostly punk. Sirius' channel for punk also plays hip-hop, and I can't stand any of that trash, so that was a huge mark against Sirius for me.

jic

iTrader: (3)

Xm Radio!

thingthatgoes

iTrader: (2)

Exactly
That's why I'm glad I got XM.

04goatinmass

thats why xm sales are dropping and sirius are booming then

thingthatgoes

iTrader: (2)

Please don't fall into the fudged numbers that unethical marketing techniques bring.
First, XM still has more subscriptions. Second, the little doggy company has been giving away subscriptions with Mitsu and other Mopar brand cars. Because of this, there are about 100,000 cars in dealer lots that are counted as units.
Numbers don't lie, its the people that **** with the numbers that lie.

WhiteBird00

iTrader: (4)

While it is true that Sirius is giving away a lot of subscriptions with new cars and therefore not gaining much income from them, it is not true that this inflates their numbers. Subscriptions are only counted when activated - unsold cars on a dealer's lot are not included in subscription counts.

04goatinmass

if im not mistaken xm did the same thing,why do you think people who had xm that came with there car are bringing it back to the dealer to have it modified to sirius.plus it only counts activated units,thus the word subscibers when they give out there numbers of people they have

00badbird

Sirius by a landslide........

had Xm and is no were near sirius, with the selection and quality of channels.

SmokingWS6

iTrader: (1)

Last year when I worked the sales floor at Best Buy you literally could not buy or even order a sirius radio at times. My self I am addicted to Maxium radio and a couple of the comedy channels. I could care less if they carry stern or not.


sat radio's compression still bothers me when I listen to music. they are close to 128k mp3's but not quite. Any talk of xm or sirius upping the bit rate in the near future, or is that not possible with the current radios?

also, has anybody attempted to hardwire their radio to the stock monsoon headunit. In theory you could connect it to the cd changer audio ports but i'm not sure if that'll work or not.