I’m putting this in CS since it is a music question.
It looks like I can get SiriusXM including an app, online access and one radio registered for $18.99 / month. I currently use Pandora One which is $3 per month but gets very repetitive very fast. I can use Pandora in my car so that’s not a major difference except for buying a $70 tuner. Is the SiriusXM really worth $16/month? Do I really need to buy a tuner or can I get away with juryrigging something in my car to play the SiriusXM app?
How do you use Pandora in your car, if not through a smartphone app? I would think you could do the same thing with the SiriusXM app.
Except my stereo is made to specifically access my Pandora app through the radio controls like change stations, skip tracks, etc.
Are you a Howard Stern fan?
Not enough to pay $16/mo
To me its worth it because I’m an Opie and Anthony fan and a Ron and Fez fan. Sirius XM also has every sports broadcast. If you want to hear the White Sox game with their home station announcers and you live in Atlanta you can. Same with football, hockey and basketball. There is also a large selection of news and commentary. Just about any type of radio programming you can think of (good and bad). That stuff Pandora can’t compete with. If its only music you are interested in or only a narrow selection of music I’m not sure if its worth the price.
Here is the channel lineup. If you don’t care about and won’t use most of it stick with the cheaper plan.
I think Sirius will let you do a 30-day internet radio trial. Give it a try. There’s some stations that definitely just feel like a playlist on shuffle, but on some of the stations the DJ’s do a really good job curating and programming and it shows. I think whether it’s worth it or whether it compares favorably to Pandora really depends on what kind of music you like.
Hardware-wise, if your car has an aux-in or can play music through bluetooth and you don’t have problems with data coverage and usage, you can probably just do the internet-only subscription and use the smartphone app in your car.
I’m out of data coverage pretty much constantly so I have a plug-and-play radio that has a car dock and home dock, so I only pay for one subscription and move the radio around. I’ve also got the a la carte subscription which is around 9/month for 50 channels, although some of the "premium" channels cost an extra .25 and I’ve never been able to see any rhyme or reason to which ones are and aren’t. (I understand the Howard Stern, but the Grateful Dead channel? How much can it really cost to get a bunch of old deadheads to play their bootleg collections?) Fortunately none of the ones I like cost extra. There are also a few channels that are internet-only so keep that in mind when you’re deciding.
If you are considering Sirius for music, you will definitely want a free trial before paying for it. In my opinion, the music programming is not good.
But if streaming through your phone is an option for you, I suggest you try SKY.FM. The free service is pretty nice, and very light on ads. About 68 channels to choose from, all music. Much better than Sirius.
I bought a lifetime SiriusXM subscription four years ago for MLB games. Now I use the MLB At Bat app on my phone. I only keep the SiriusXM sub since at this point it’s basically free. If I had to pay for it monthly I would drop it. The music selection on my iPod is better.
I listened to SiriusXM for a while when I borrowed my sister’s car for a month a while back, and I’ll occasionally listen to it when working offshore. The thing that sticks in my crawl is that despite being a subscription service they still have ads. Granted, they’re ads for other SiriusXM programming or stations, but for $20 a month I’d better not have to endure a regular break in the music to listen to someone try to sell me a product that I’m already purchasing.