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Sirius quality not woth the money...


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You are correct, although, I have never got a traffic report yet that saved me from a bad traffic situation from them, mostly because the time that takes for accidents to be reported and get that report delivered to your unit. Sometimes that report takes about an hour to happen, at least in Virginia where I live. I get much faster reporting on my iPhone with Google maps and in my regular GPS. May be for other areas where traffic is much worst makes a difference? Not in here for me.

That is interesting. Here in Cincinnati the information from Sirius seems to update really quickly. This morning we had some icy conditions from a storm that went through overnight and my screen was lit up like a Christmas tree with all the traffic icons and such. In fact I saw my first weather icon on the screen where I'm assuming the road had iced over.

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Here is my understanding of how all this breaks out. The 3 year complementary SYNC covers just the services that are related to the syncmyride.com web site, and when you are in the car and say "Services" and it connects via your cell phone. These would include vehicle health reporting, downloading directions from Google, downloading saved favorite points, the news and verbal weather service, and the SYNC based business searching.

 

Sirius Travellink covers the screen based weather services, the fuel prices, movie listings, and very importantly, all the traffic that is visible on your touchscreen (maps with traffic, navigation traffic avoidance, etc). I believe Sirius breaks this out into 2 services but I would suspect most people would want them both (Traffic and Info Services) as they are apparently pretty cheap (see post above).

 

Additionally, Sirius has the music portion of the service. You either use this or you don't, apparently you can just have the Travellink without the music stuff (or vice-versa).

 

I think a lot of folks, especially those with navigation like me, are going to be disappointed to discover the traffic built into the navigation system is coming from Sirius and will stop after 6 months versus continuing for 3 years. At least it is cheap to continue, but the free 3 year service is mainly the voice system where the car dials the SYNC 800 number.

 

If I am wrong someone please correct me. To be honest even my dealer was not clear on how all this works out, I was told everything was included free for 3 years except the music service but from what I'm reading that is not correct. The Travellink stuff expires after 6 months as well and is fairly integrated into the navigation equipped models...

 

 

Thank you for an excellent breakdown of what does what. Guess I'll spring for the music and Sirius traffic/weather Although I really don'y need to spend another 20.00 per month

 

Thanks again, nice write up

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Thank you for an excellent breakdown of what does what. Guess I'll spring for the music and Sirius traffic/weather Although I really don'y need to spend another 20.00 per month

 

Thanks again, nice write up

Tom, one other thing that should be mentioned before you call. There has been a lot of talk on this (and other) forums about negotiating with Sirius on the music portion to get a better deal. I won't repeat everything said, but suffice it to say you can do a lot better on your renewal than what they usually offer you the first time (or in the mail). I would research before calling them.

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WIth regard to satellite radio sound quality.

 

The current state of satellite radio sound quality is really awful. Music channels are completely unlistenable, and the better your audio system is, the more it reveals the defects and compression artifacts. The spoken-word channels have even more compression applied and sound awful as well, but at least you can tolerate that when listening to talk or news. If you love Sirius, there is no need to upgrade your speakers or the rest of the audio system... it might sound worse.

 

Comparatively speaking, Sirius sounds FAR worse than a decent FM station (HD-Radio or otherwise), far worse than an iTunes download and far worse than a reasonably made MP3.Pandora, MOG and Slacker Internet Radio sound waaaaaay better than SIrius, too... and they're all compressed (just not as badly).

 

There is no technological reason why the sound quality could not be excellent. Sirius/XM has the ability to determine how much data bandwidth they give each channel, so if they wanted to you could have near CD audio quality on any given channel. The unfortunate fact, however, is that they have chosen to allocate very little bandwidth to each channel in order to be able to offer more channels of programming. So, they apply tons of "proprietary compression algorithms" to squeeze the data. It sounds bad on purpose. It is not a high-fidelity service, which is a real shame because it has the potential to sound great, if people could live with half the number of stations.

Edited by msmith
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  • 2 weeks later...

Had to take my car in for a small service, but I was given a Lincoln MK S.... and I could not hear the compression..... but.... BUT.... it was because the awful set of speakers on that car... this shows you that THX is giving their logo rights of use to ANYONE that pays the fee.....

 

The system was merely reproducing any frequency over 8Khz.... and I checked the tone controls... the speakers on the door are only woofers, the mid range is on the dashboard facing the windshield so you actually hear the bounce against the glass, and mid rage sounds like if the speaker is inside of a tin can....... there is a total void of frequency response from about 300HZ to 1Khz...... (have tools to test it....)

 

Really awful compared to the sound on my Edge with stock speakers... I'm glad the Edge does not have the same system....

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  • 2 months later...

I have been a Sirius subscriber for the past 5 years and LOVE IT! excellent sound and quality and of course STERN and NFL network. When I first set up my system, Sirius was offering a lifetime subscription which they no longer offer. I believe it was and still is the best value (If interested look around on the net there are people willing to sell there lifetime subscription).

I called them today to find out if I can transfer my lifetime subscription to my Edge once the 6 months expires and they said it will be no problem but they will charge me a 75.00. I can never go back to FM radio again

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I have been a Sirius subscriber for the past 5 years and LOVE IT! excellent sound and quality and of course STERN and NFL network. When I first set up my system, Sirius was offering a lifetime subscription which they no longer offer. I believe it was and still is the best value (If interested look around on the net there are people willing to sell there lifetime subscription).

I called them today to find out if I can transfer my lifetime subscription to my Edge once the 6 months expires and they said it will be no problem but they will charge me a 75.00. I can never go back to FM radio again

 

They still do have the lifetime. I signed up for it about a month ago or so.

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I guess I don't know what good quality is supposed to sound like. We don't have expensive equipment in our home.

 

We have only listened to about five channels and there are two that we listen to most of the time. Locally there is only one channel that we like. On the road, once we are out of range of WRR 101.1 the hunt for acceptable music is on. There is a station that plays big band and standards, what you would probably call elevator music, but we like it. But the range is limited. We end up playing CDs. We don't care for country or Mexican Polka, which is about all I can find in Central Texas. With Sirius we can go from home to any of our destinations without changing channels. We will renew the subscription when the free period is up.

Edited by 11Edge
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We don't care for country or Mexica Polka, which is about all I can find in Central Texas.

Ha ha.... same choices up here in the Panhandle of Texas. We get 20 miles out of Amarillo and that's your only two choices. Still not sure if we'll continue the Sirius after our 6 months is over. Definitely going to keep the travel info, though. The weather radar is a lifesaver (literally) traveling around here and through Oklahoma.

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  • 3 weeks later...

As compression technology improves, either Sirius/XM will start offering higher quality channels or there may be a competitor that launches into the business. I admit that when I listen to SAT, its usually for news/sports talk. For music, I have a 30 gb IPod hooked up and many of those tracks are 256 or 320 bit tracks so they sound amazing on the Sony system.

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I can't speak to sound quality because of my 60% hearing loss from things that go bang. However, I can comment on the "I'm paying for music and the DJ wannabee's won't shut up noise" that I do hear on the few channels that interest me. Between Pandora and my personal music collection I have more music than I can listen to while in the vehicle. Now if only turning the channel would stop the ringing in my ears.

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  • 4 weeks later...

So my free trial expired and they turned me off, pretty much exactly on the minute that they could. I have already called them once in the car to get their initial offer, they started off at +$300 for everything for a year, then they came down to $250 for everything for a year, and then they offered me $69 a year for just the Traffic and Travelink stuff. I am leaning toward not going with the audio since I honestly only use that on trips, and I don't really take enough trip to justify the expense.

 

So what is the best price anyone has gotten on everything for a year, and what is the best price for just the Traffic/Travelink portion? I saw someone posted they got the latter for $24 which I would do, just wondering what is the best on the whole bundle.

 

Thanks in advance!

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So my free trial expired and they turned me off, pretty much exactly on the minute that they could. I have already called them once in the car to get their initial offer, they started off at +$300 for everything for a year, then they came down to $250 for everything for a year, and then they offered me $69 a year for just the Traffic and Travelink stuff. I am leaning toward not going with the audio since I honestly only use that on trips, and I don't really take enough trip to justify the expense.

 

So what is the best price anyone has gotten on everything for a year, and what is the best price for just the Traffic/Travelink portion? I saw someone posted they got the latter for $24 which I would do, just wondering what is the best on the whole bundle.

 

Thanks in advance!

I'm the one that got the $24 deal. To get the deal that I got, I had to go through 4 or 5 people.

I later found out when I looked at the Travel Link subscription page, that Traffic is not included. Damn!

The weather app works once in a while but I can't trust it.

Gas prices seem to work but I don't use them.

I don't see a need for it until they fix this POS called Touch

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I'm the one that got the $24 deal. To get the deal that I got, I had to go through 4 or 5 people.

I later found out when I looked at the Travel Link subscription page, that Traffic is not included. Damn!

The weather app works once in a while but I can't trust it.

Gas prices seem to work but I don't use them.

I don't see a need for it until they fix this POS called Touch

Glad you mentioned that the $24 didn't include the traffic as I would like to have both the traffic and the travelink if they will do it cheaply enough. So far they have quoted me $69 for a year of just those two things which I turned down. My next step is to see if they will still do the $77 deal for everything, if not I will hammer on them for a better price for everything but the audio portion.

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I just renewed ours in the 11 Edge and 08 Focus. It is too much work for me to remember what music is on the USB stick, decide what I want to hear and ask for it.... on the flip side, I'm getting tired of hearing all the same songs on Sirius. I think Pandora is probably the way I would go if I had the setup. Hm, maybe my argument could be to save the $/mo on Sirius and apply that to my Verizon bill so I can get a smartphone for pandora! :)

 

Don't listen to the majority of Sirius channels, though, because the trashy compression makes the talk stations hard to understand (at least with the road noise in my 08 focus). Had kind of gotten used to the compressed music stream over time, then when I played an MP3 it blew me away. Like night and day. It is frustrating that they accept such poor quality. Someone mentioned that maybe there would be more choice in the future, but I don't expect to see others enter the marketplace. There used to be two sat radio choices, but they couldn't even make it work separately. Maybe the Pandora-type services will be the competition they need to clean up their act.

 

 

By the way, anyone use Verizon and stream Pandora much? Does that rack up your bill now that there is no unlimited data plan?

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By the way, anyone use Verizon and stream Pandora much? Does that rack up your bill now that there is no unlimited data plan?

 

 

I stream Pandora all the time and don't have any issues with my 2GB data plan with AT&T (I've got an iPhone 3GS). As long as you've got good coverage from your carrier, it's a great solution.

 

It would be great if it was available as an integrated MFT app but I'm not expecting much while they finish re-working the base software.

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What did it cost? The web does not offer lifetime so I called them and they said they no longer offer it.

 

It's only in the US and if I recall it was about $800. They have a plan where they split the cost between about 4 consecutive months that go on your credit card with no interest. You get different answers depending on whom you speak to.

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Just had them re-activate Sirius on my Edge and wife's Fusion. They gave me 5 months for $20 on each vehicle. Total price was just over $26.00 for each vehicle. They even discounted the $15 reactivation fee for each vehicle to zero. I can live with the compression for that price. They will charge my credit card the regular price at the end of the 5 months, but I will call them before then to get a better price or I will have them turn it off again.

 

When I called them I just kept asking them to give me their best plan and that is what they offered me.

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Just had them re-activate Sirius on my Edge and wife's Fusion. They gave me 5 months for $20 on each vehicle. Total price was just over $26.00 for each vehicle. They even discounted the $15 reactivation fee for each vehicle to zero. I can live with the compression for that price. They will charge my credit card the regular price at the end of the 5 months, but I will call them before then to get a better price or I will have them turn it off again.

 

When I called them I just kept asking them to give me their best plan and that is what they offered me.

What did they reactivate for that price? I just got the traffic and Travellink stuff turned back on for $20 for 5 months (no audio) and I thought I was doing pretty well. If you got everything turned on in two vehicles for the same I will have to negotiate a little bit harder next time. :-)

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