I’m tired of commercial radio and I’m going to put “Satellite Radio” on my Xmas list. Which is better, XM or Sirius and why?
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I’ve had both and I prefer Sirius. HOWEVER it really doesn’t matter - once you switch over from commercial radio, you’re gonna be so happy with either service.
FWIW - Sirius has less channels, but no commercials. They also have NPR feeds. These NPR feeds are not that satisfying however IMHO - I often switch over to my local NPR station on regular radio.
XM has a better comedy channel, and more variety. It’s also the bigger, more established company.
Pop Tart or Toaster Strudel? Doesn’t really matter cause they’re both so freaking good. 
- Peter Wiggen
XM only has commericals when broadcasting something else that does have commericals. ESPN Radio, say, or the audio feed of CNN. When the feed goes to commerical, XM puts in their own commericals. The music channels are all commerical-free.
I can’t give a comparison since I haven’t used Sirius. But I will say that I love my XM radio. There ARE commercials on SOME channels, like XM Comedy 150 but it’s still freaking great. If you have little kids, be prepared that some of the channels have “Adult” language, like the aforementioned comedy channel. There’s always some worth listening to on the air, even if you have to surf a while to find it.
Do you like Howard Stern? Then better go with Sirius.
Otherwise uhm…I dunno, I don’t have either.
The wife got me XM for the truck for my birthday, and I love it. Every major league baseball game was what sold me on XM vs Sirius. They have a clean and a blue comedy channel, cover all the Pac-10 and ACC games, have in-car feeds from NASCAR (for at least the next year), and they don’t carry Howard Stern. ( I hate him.) More channels, really good music channels, and live traffic for my metro area. What’s not to like?
I don’t think there’s a definitive answer.
I have XM. Now that Stern is going to Sirius, I wish I had Sirius.
Neither company is going away any time soon, so your investment is still safe. Go to both web sites and see which line-ups you prefer.
Opie & Anthony
I currently have both, and plan to cancel my XM subscription soon.
For me, the main advantage of XM was that it has Air America Radio, but Air America has cancelled two of my favorite shows so I don’t care too much anymore. And Sirius has their own left-wing talk channel (Sirius Left) which is just as good.
Sirius has two NPR channels, but neither carries Morning Edition or All Things Considered. (I guess they don’t want to take business away from local NPR affiliates.) That still leaves quite a few interesting shows - Fresh Air, Diane Rehm (sp?), Talk of the Nation, etc. Between Sirius Left and the two NPR channels I can usually find one that interests me.
I also like the Sirius music channels better. Hard to say exactly why - I just haven’t found any XM channel that I like. Also the XM channels aren’t named very intuitively, which may be part of the reason.
i also hear there’s a big difference in sports coverage, but I wouldn’t know anything about that. Anybody?
If you get XM, I strongly recommend you do not go with the Roady 2 receiver. Get something with at least a 3-line display and a dial.
I have Sirius because of the NPR feed–my favorite shows are This American Life and Fresh Air. If you’re a football fan, Sirius has all the NFL games–a definite plus if you’re on the road on Sundays.
OK…I’ll give you that one!
Given a choice between listening to MLB (XM) or NFL (Sirius), I’ll take MLB as it is more conducive to listening on the radio whereas football really needs to be seen (IMHO of course) to be appreciated.
In addition, I am enjoying Opie and Anthony enough to have them on my earphones at work each morning (along with Ron and Fez). Add in the great comedy channels and old radio shows, and I’m an XM subscriber. The wife has one in her Avalanche and I just got for my birthday a MyFi which I can listen to at home and in my car. Oh, and if you are a subscriber, you can listen to many (but not all) XM radio channels on your computer, which is how I listen to the aforementioned Opie and Anthony.
My wife just bought a car that came with a subscription to Sirius. I generally like the programming but depending on the bandwidth allocated per channel, I find the sound quality ranges from just acceptable to flat out terrible. I did a bit of research and have found that Sirius tends to compress their signal more than XM.
I’ve only briefly listened to XM, but found that the sound quality was closer to CD-like.
Take a look at both websites, and look at what shows/radio personalities and what sports are offered by each. These will be different, and you can pick by which ones you prefer. As far as the music goes, there is a wide range on both stations and both will have something you’ll like (I agree with scr4 about the naming of the XM music stations though - you can’t tell just by looking at most of them what kind of music you’re going to get).
XM’s equipment tends to be slicker but Sirius is catching up with that pretty fast.
I have listened to Sirius and I have XM so I will break down what I think of both. I think you will like either but their are some differences.
XM:
More and better sports coverage. Every baseball game played by every team.
A ton of talk stations from left to right.
A great comedy channel (adult) plus one with no dirty words.
A wide range of music channels.
Many live special performances in the XM studios, things you will never hear anywhere else.
Emergency alert traffic and weather for every major metro area in the country.
Sirius:
Every NFL game.
A much better selection of rock stations, especially hard rock. (don’t listen often to other styles so I can’t tell you).
Some nice quirky stations that don’t easily fit into categories.
I prefer XM for 2 reasons (OK four) Opie and Anthony and Ron and Fez. Sirius is getting the old tired Howard Stern show. Maybe the move will breathe some life into Howie and he’ll stop phoning it in (I used to be a big fan, now that he is a cranky hypocrite not so much). If you are not a fan of such shows that shouldn’t effect you too much.
Entertainment Weekly did a short piece on Sat radio a few weeks ago (can’t remember the article). It basically said that both were very good and much better than regular radio. I don’t think you will be too disappointed in either.
This may be the single greatest mod-action since manhattan moved a thread about Gilbert & Sullivan in verse.
Me, I’m an XM guy and have been for…God…a long time. Almost since the beginning. Even before the MLB package came through I’ve loved it.
You will never go back to terrestrial radio. When you hear regular radio you’ll truly appreciate how banal and offensive advertising truly is.
Amen.
Sirius’s playlists aren’t quite as deep as XM’s (more repeats.) And there’s nothing Sirius has that can truly compare to MLB coverage (the NFL is not a radio sport.)
I don’t think this is quite accurate.
“The music channels are all commercial-free.” is mostly accurate, though they do include ads for other XM channels.
“XM only has commercials when broadcasting something else that does have commercials.” is inaccurate. The comedy channels both have commercials (both for XM and other things), and are XM-programmed. I’m not sure about the other XM-produced but non-music channels.
I’ve had XM since. . .February, and I like it a lot. The baseball is great, the comedy channels are great, the range of music is great (one channel for every decade from the 40s to the 90s, plus music by style including four or five jazz channels and three classical channels). I haven’t really checked out Sirius at all though, so I can’t say which is better, but XM works for me.
XM and Sirius are moving into Canada. I am seriously thinking of getting one of the portable receivers, because terrestrial radio sucks, even in Canada. (And IMHO, the launch of DAB in Canada has been totally screwed up.)
It looks like Sirius will have CBC Radio One and CBC Radio Three, as well as Bandeapart, the CBC French alternative/world music program (which is great, by the way).
My question: will these be available to US listeners of XM as well?