XM v. Sirius
Yesterday, I took my car in to switch it over to Mobile 1 synthetic oil, and while I was there, I bothered to ask about whether Infiniti had released the modules for the stereo to connect them to the satellite network players XM and Sirius. One of the neat things about the car is that it has a changable module that allows you to choose which system to use, rather than having the manufacturer choose. When I had bought the car originally, the modules hadn’t been scheduled for release for another 6 months.
Anyway, apparantly both modules are out, and now I have to decide if they’re worth the money ($400.00), and which of them I would prefer. There are trade-offs to both services when it comes to what channels are available, and unfortunately, I don’t know anyone with Sirius, though I do know 2 people with XM. There’s another factor at play, and that’s survivability. There’s a good chance one of the two players won’t survive the next few years, and my question is which one?
XM has substantially more subscribers, perhaps a 10:1 ratio with Sirius, however they just recently found out that they launched some broken satellites that won’t have much life span, and are spending something like $400 to replace them, which was not in their budget. Decisions, decisions. Who is going to survive?
Updated : So I went through the radio channel listings (100 per service) and figured out which, if any, I would listen to. It was 30 with Sirius, 24 with XM, but honestly, without actually listening to the various channels, I can’t say as they’re the right blend for me, just that they cover the right genre that I would like to hear. Either way, that’s 23+ more stations than I listen to today.
I have to admit, though, that Sirius’ channel 42, which they call Wax has a pretty cool lineup that isn’t on XM or even close. A whole station dedicated to turntablism and freestyle spinning? DJ Red Alert? Now you’ve got my attention.
The other thing, Sirius lets you listen to some bit of their lineup (I’m at work and can’t right now), where-as XM doesn’t seem to. I should try and go by somewhere to take a listen to the two styles. I’m sure they’re roughly equivelent sound quality.
This entry was posted at 8:38 am on 14 August 2003 and is filed under Cars. You can follow any responses to this entry through the post-specific RSS 2.0 feed.
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Really late here, but you know about DJ Red Alert?