XM & Delphi (home and car)

dylan · December 2002

Just had to share how much I like the new Delphi receivers for XM... I have about a 45 minute commute each way, and the last few months with XM has been completely awesome. My wife took right to it, and kept reminding me her car did not have it (so it became an early Christmas present last week). Yeah, it was for her, that's the ticket...

The new Delphi setups are about half the price of the Sony ones that you can swap back and forth from car to home. Nice display, sturdy units, and very easy to setup.

Beyond that, XM is the best thing I've used in a long time. The quality is exceptional, the programming is varied, most channels don't have commercials, and there are uncensored channels, so you don't get the radio-butchered versions. I keep hearing stuff I've completely forgotten about, so it's been fun.

And there's a promo right now with hooking up a second unit for no activation fee and 3 months free. Two major thumbs up!

madmax · December 2002

The Delphi unit is much more pleasant to use as far as selecting the channel you want. I have the Sony and when you are changing the station you only have about one second to see what the station is before it starts to change to it. The Delphi gives you unlimited time to think about what channel you want to hear and then you tell it to change to it. The Sony has a cheap little noisy fan as well which bugs me a little when I use it in the house. Back at the time the Sony choice was a no brainer because of the sound quality difference between it and the Pioneer which was the only other one out there. The Pioneer had no soundstage but the Sony was very full. I wish I could do the same side by side comparison with the Delphi vs the Sony. The Delphi one is definatly nicer to use and has the portable option for the home or car.
madmax

madmax · December 2002

I forgot to mention that the portable style like the sony and the delphi is nice because you can use it wherever you want and not pay the extra $10 per month for additional receivers. This is great if you are the only one listening to it at any given time. I use mine at home, work and in the car. XM is a dream come true! I cannot believe how much good new music there is that never receives any traditional air play. I find myself hearing new song after new song which I feel the need to memorize so I can buy them later. As a matter of fact, months after getting my xm I went back and tried to listen to FM and I just couldn't swallow it. They are still playing the same old songs they were playing over a year ago. XM had moved on several times since then! Awesome new technology AND programming!!!
madmax

avelanchefan · December 2002

Dylan,

Glad you like XM. I debated heavily last week between XM and Sirius head units. I ended up with the Sirius because you got $105 off the sirius receiver and antenna. I looked at the Delfi and Sony external units but I really do not listen to the radio much in my house.

Any ways I was blown away at the clarity of satellite radio. One of the better purchases I made in a long time. All the music stations are top notch IMHO. Talk radio is better than the AM radio. And the choices of talk radio are unreal. Also love the comedy channel. In fact there is nothing that I can say that i dislike...well except the monthly fee.

I don't know if XM does this but with sirius if you pay a year in advance you get one month free, two years you get 3 months, and so on up to a seven year contract which gets you 14 months free.

I think either way you go (Sirius or XM) you have made a wise choice.

goingganzo · December 2002

i still think it is over priced i would rather they make their money like local radio stashons than charg me for it i like my local stashons for there local flair

madmax · December 2002

Local radiostations suck. You couldn't pay me $10 to listen to them anymore.
madmax

dylan · December 2002

Originally posted by madmax001
Local radiostations suck. You couldn't pay me $10 to listen to them anymore.
madmax

100% agreed... honestly I'm happy to pay $10 ($20 now with 2 receivers) a month for this service. The enjoyment I get out of this is far, far more than 1 CD'ish a month. Listening to FM on the way to get the XM installed in my wife's car reminded me. We get poor FM reception in this area anyway, but beyond that the variety, lack of commercials, it displays the artist and song title while it's playing (COOL!!), and lack of blabbing by the DJ (unless you want the talk channels) sells me instantly.

Interesting about the payments with Sirius, I mainly went with XM since it worked better with my Pioneer decks (my understanding anyway). Either way you go, I almost guarantee you'll be a happy camper.

madmax · December 2002

At first I didn't want to pay the $10 a month but after listening to it for a week it becomes obvious that it is worth while. Far better than anything else you could pay $10 per month for. In many ways it is under priced for what is offered.
madmax

TheGrayGhost · December 2002

I agree that the Delphi XM Satellite Radio is excellent and a great value at $10 per month.

However, I found one small problem with the SKYFi Home Kit. If you need to use a different 1/8 miniplug to stereo RCA cable because the one supplied with the kit is to short you will need to reverse the industry standard color-coded RCA connectors. The line out jack on the home stand has the left and right channels wired wrong and the supplied cable corrects it by not being standard.

If you do use a different cable the red RCA plug needs to be connected to the left channel and white plug to the right to get the correct stereo imaging.

MxStYlEpOlKmAn · December 2002

does XM radio have cd quality sound?

avelanchefan · December 2002

I dont think it is true CD quality but it is as close as you can get.

My understanding is that it sends the data to your receiver at about 196 kbs. True CD quality is what...320 kbs.

But honestly to me it sounds CD quality. As I said earlier the clarity is damn amazing that it does sound like a cd is playing.

My only complaint is that under bridges or in parking garages...etc... you lose the signal. It is just not able to communicate under any type of structure. Now this is a Sirius setup....XM may be different.

madmax · December 2002

XM handles short time under a bridge or under trees but not long in parking garages. It does fade in and out nicely though, no pops or screaches or anything. I understand it is not completely CD quality but even when I hook it up in the house through my two channel rig I really can't tell. This is odd because I can hear a big difference between CD and SACD. Can anyone explain that one?
madmax

HBombToo · December 2002

Originally posted by avelanchefan
My only complaint is that under bridges or in parking garages...etc... you lose the signal. It is just not able to communicate under any type of structure. Now this is a Sirius setup....XM may be different.

This is a typical problem even for wireless phones. I'm not sure about Sirius but I do know for a fact that XM has deployed terrestrial based repeaters to overcome ground clutter. In other words the satellite signal is received at a tower then amplified and rebroadcast at that higher level from that location. The increased signal level will compensate for heavy urban losses and shadowing within about 2 miles of the rebroadcast antennas.

Also I'm not sure about the quality of the media being broadcast but I'm am sure that it is 44.1 PCM.

HBomb

rskarvan · December 2002

Buy Delphi ! ! !

(my employer).

dylan · December 2002

I thought the quality question is a good one, so I asked XM if they could share exactly what the bit rate is. Personally it sounds awfully close to CD's to me.
This is the reply I got back (in a few hours... not bad). I asked how XM rated compared to 128kbps for lower 'CD quality' or 64kbps for FM (I used the below image from Easy CD 5 for a reference), which may be where they got the 128 in the following:

Unfortunately, we are unable to share any technical details as this information is proprietary. However, our service is digital quality and does have a bit rate much closer to that of a CD (128kbps) than FM.

That leads me to believe it's less than 128, but mp3's I've heard at less than 128 don't sound very clear at all, like there's a lot missing, which I do not get at all from XM. Dunno...

This image is from Easy CD 5 about what they think are the respective rates (FM on this list is 64kbps):

avelanchefan · December 2002

Thanks Dylan for the info.

Earlier I posted about the lack of signals under structures. What I meant was more in the area of garages(parking)...etc...I do not lose any signal while driving under bridges.

Also I just got an e-mail from Sirius, and I am able to listen to all the stations over the web. Quality of that is pretty good for streaming. I have yet to lose a connection after 5 hours of play. Just another great thing about Sirius. I am sure XM does the same thing.

But man the more I listen the more I love it. In fact I had to take my dad with me to some Christmas functions, and I had forgotten to tell him about getting it. He just freaked over it. Could not believe the diversity of all the stations. He's into classical and jazz, so those stations were right up his alley since there are virtually no stations like that where he lives. So it looks like another satellite customer in the future.

XM & Delphi (home and car)

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