Hello, everyone! Well, I've had my Sirius on since around 12:30 pm Pacific Time yesterday. Here are some of my observations:
I like both services; XM continues to be my favorite and top choice. I'll keep 'em both after all. XM: Radio Classics has a host and I like the information he gives about the shows and the actors, actresses, whether or not they are still with us. I exchange anemail with him from time to time. He's nice. Wish they would not interrupt the shows, but what can you do? More otr on XM while Sirius runs the same few shows every couple of hours; they don't split the shows in half, but run a commercial or two and play a piece or two of music in between their lineup of otr; no host on Retro Radio, as Sirius calls their channel. (Can't use the same names for the channels, I guess because of copyright reason.) XM: More Decades than Sirius Sirius: Sirius Gold, 60's Vibrations, Totally 70's, Big 80's, The Pulse grouped together. There is an Elvis channel that plays everything Elvis Presley ever recorded and it is the official station of Graceland. XM: There is only one religious channel Family Talk, and two christian music channels, The Fish and Spirit. Sirius: Spirit, Praise, Wisdom, EWTN, Word are represented and there are a couple more religious channels which are hispanic. XM: SonicTheater Sirius: No modern radio drama or books there XM and Sirius: Talk radio left, right and center Sirius: NPR and NPR talk; Court TV Radio Plus; Out Q for gays, lesbians, and other folks (if you're supersensitive to this, avoid that channel if you don't have an open mind.) XM and Sirius: XM: The Joint plays reggae music all the time Sirius: Reggae Rhythms Both have different types of rock channels including alternative, hiphop and hard to heavy metal Sirius: Hair nation, 80's hair bands (I don't know what that is. It's a strange name for music.) XM and Sirius: Easy listening, love songs and mellow XM and Sirius: XM The Village, folk music Sirius: Folk Town Both have blues and bluegrass Both have commercial-free music channels. XM: On Broadway Sirius: Brodway's Best The classical music channels are grouped together on both services. Sound quality between the two: Excellent. Comment on receiver look and feel: XM is smaller and lighter; uses bulky heavy box adapter for boombox accessory, bigger and heavier than the one for the home kit; really cumbersome. Sirius: Home kit is chunkier, slightly larger and receiver is chunky and antenna feels a bit thicker and a little heavier than the XM. Sirius: Runs on regular 3-prong plug connected to a power supply which comes with the unit. Inaccessible features: As far as visually impaired: Screen readout; clock, timer, (sleep timer); have not played with presets yet on Sirius unit. Might later by accident, who knows? Comment: detented tuning knob Each station is a click on the dial. Sirius: Very audible pop when turning on or off. Probably nothing to it, just letting you know it's working. XM: Less audible pop when turned on but that's normal. Remote control: Sirius is chunky and the numbers are arranged with the 0 between the power and mute buttons at the very top of remote. Why I don't know! Channel up and down triangle; Enter button in the middle, left and right triangle don't do anything we can tell without vision. Sirius remote runs on 2 AAA batteries. Additonal comment: Like the Vacation channel. It's different. Swing Street and standards are excellent; I still love Frank's Place and my other favorites on XM. Both have their good advantages. Sirius: Weather channels east, west and central; traffic channels are much clearer than XM's traffic channels, which are very fuzzy and lousy! Sirius offers a lifetime membership for $1200. (I haven't got that kind of money, honey! I opted for a one-year service deal.) Anyway, will have the two side by side and will be going back and forth between the two in listening and checking out things. Oh, yeah! Hilly Rose and Doug Stephan are on Sirius, but not on XM. Rush Limbaugh (I hate him!) is on Sirius. Rusty Humphries is on both XM and Sirius. (I used to listen to him in Reno, but don't like him anymore. I like the left channels better. But hey, that's me. Everybody has their own preferences. That's all there is to that.) Well, there you go. Have I confused you thoroughly? Good morning! Oh, there is Crackup and Raw Dog; XM has Laughs USA and that other comedy channel. Raw Dog is pretty raunchy. Stay away if you don't like that one. (Like Arch Ober used to say, (If you wish to avoid the excitement or being upset by what offends you, etc) Hey, that's why we have the tuner--move on to another channel! Mimi I'm a satellite radio junkie! _______________________________________________ PC-Audio List Help, Guidelines, Archives and more... http://www.pc-audio.org To unsubscribe from this list, send a blank email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
