Stereo Stuff

As I discussed a couple weeks ago, I purchased both loww cost Sirius and XM receivers to try during The Great Ice Cream Run … I basically planned to stick with XM because it receives under trees on my work route, while Sirius doesn’t.

Well, by the second day of the drive, my decision was made:
I ripped out the XM antenna and receiver, and have been on Sirius ever since!

I found with XM that I frequently had to switch to another channel, because the music style I was listening to didn’t suit me; I just couldn’t find channels I was happy with for long periods.
With Sirius on the other hand, I could select for example channel 22 (my current fave) and basically leave it tuned all day, or at least till I fancied a different style.
For me, the XM programming doesn’t have enough consistency – the DJs aren’t as interesting to listen to either.

So, I’m stuck with a new choice: pay for Sirius and live with it cutting out on my drive to/from work, or give up satellite radio once again … curiously, Sirius received PERFECTLY all through the Blue Ridge Parkway and Skyline Drive, both heavily tree covered.
The trees in Essex must be really thick, or it’s the more northerly angle to the satellites …

Anyway, if anyone wants an XM receiver going cheap … 😉

Background:
I tried Sirius a couple of years ago on my Kenwood, but it cut out predictably often under trees – there are lots of trees on my commute!

Recently, with receiver prices so low, I bought an XM receiver – using it was a revelation for the first week (just one quick cutout under a big tree on the rotary near my house). Of course, as soon as I signed up, XM had a major outage but now they’re working again and perfect.
However, I wanted to know if Sirius had improved – I remember their channel line-up being better than the XM offering (of course memory makes things seem better!), so I also bought a low price Sirius receiver.

The Sirius receiver looks much nicer than the XM – it’s amber backlight and black case works well with a stock MINI, and the receiver needs no stand so it’s small; the XM requires a stand and is a dull gray with off-white backlight. The Sirius channel select is easier for me too – up/down buttons – while the XM has a tuning knob (which is OK) but requires an extra click-to-select once you’ve got the channel you want. Mostly though, both are easy to use.
However, the Sirius antenna is a bit more bulky than the XM …

For trials before you subscribe, the XM is better – preview channel 1 continuously plays “sound bites” from other channels, giving a good flavor of the type of music and quality available. Also, I found that a collection of channels (including 7, 20, 54, 121) were active to try! I don’t know if that was a bug in my receiver, but if it’s normal then it’s a great way to let users try out the system.
Sirius on the other hand offers just one channel, which spends most of the time playing the Weather Channel – not a good demonstration of quality, and no real indicator of what’s available on other channels. Adverts regularly push Howard Stern / Martha Stewart, but no examples of sound on other channels.

Of course in the end, it’s down to reception – if I can’t hear it, it doesn’t matter how good it is! XM, apart from the outage, has been 99.9% perfect. On my commute, it drops out for less than 1s, as I pass under / by heavy foliage at the rotary near my house.
All along tree lined routes 133 and 22, it receives perfectly. One other cute feature (maybe just for this receiver, when the dropout occurs you get a mimic “FM static” instead of just silence).
Sirius on the other hand, is no better than it used to be 😦
At the rotary, Sirius drops out for a total of about 5s, spread over my drive through the rotary – repeated on/off dropouts seem more annoying than a continuous cut to me! Driving routes 133 and 22, Sirius has a habit of cutting out if the trees get too heavy. It doesn’t seem to have to be directly above the road, but certain angles present problems.
When Sirius does cut out, as I said it cuts on/off repeatedly – it also seems to “skip” slightly so on a short cutout, you’ll notice the speech/music is discontinuous. My old Sirius used to do that and I assumed it was early buggy hardware, but this brand new receiver does it too so it must be a “feature” of Sirius!

I thought I might activate the Sirius for a month anyway, to compare its programming with XM (and with my memory!) … first problem, you have to specify your car and it doesn’t list “MINI” as an option. I selected BMW and entered “MINI Cooper S JCW GP – not BMW” for model name, but it rejected that 😦 so I just used “MINI Cooper S JCW GP” …
Next problem, there’s no way apparently to select the “month-by-month” subscription that’s listed on the plans page! Quarterly is the lowest cost, and paying almost $40 to experiment is a no-no (turns out you can get the month-by-month plan, but only by phoning them!)

On the way home tonight, I took Apple Street in Essex – it’s a twisty but VERY residential road, about 1.3 miles long (3 minute drive) and very heavily foliaged!

Apple Street in Essex, MA

I drove it twice, first listening to XM and timing the outages, then listening to Sirius … I was a bit surprised by the results:
XM outage totalled 20s … Sirius outage totalled 9s!

What was interesting too was how the outages occurred.
Sirius repeatedly dropped out for short periods of time, or had momentary distorted sound. The longest single outage was maybe 3s.
XM on the other hand was perfect for most of the drive, but cut out completely over one long section, where the road wraps around some large rocky outcrops (small hill!)
It seems that XM can penetrate foliage much better than Sirius, but because XM is low in the sky compared to Sirius, it’s more likely to be affected by pure bulk like hills and buildings. Of course if there’s a terrestrial repeater, everything is fine, but out on Apple St there isn’t …

So I’m still undecided. I think I’ll have to try a month of Sirius and compare the actual music choices – but given that I almost never drive Apple St, and XM is much better than Sirius for my normal drive, I might still choose XM in the end … I’ll be able to trial both during The Great Ice Cream Run next month!