Hating Sirius | Forums BMWauto.net

Hating Sirius

I hate Sirius. I like the concept of satellite radio, but I think Sirius sucks.

First, I think the sound quality is a disappointment. Satellite radio is supposed to be state of the art, but I'm not finding it better in terms of sound quality than FM.

Second, and more importantly, the reception is abysmal. It cuts in and out often depending on where I am and what time of day it is. Weather has too much of an effect on it as well. It's disgraceful that they can't offer seamless quality and reception.

Third, the programming. Whether you love Howard Stern or not, it seemed like that's all they cared about. They could do so much more with the programming.

I listen to the hard rock stations, and when I compare the songs and playlists that they play on the comparable stations that XM has . . .it's not even a contest. XM is so much better and their playlists are so much more diverse and not repetitive. If I hear another Aerosmith or Guns-N-Roses song, I'm going to go nuts.

When I was at the NYC car show, I asked the XM sales rep, why aren't more cars with XM? He looked at me as if I had 2 heads and showed me a list that had almost all carmakers except for Mercedes and BMW.

What's up with that?

BMW should either give people a choice between Sirius and XM or dump Sirius all together.

Reply » Hating Sirius

i agree. Other than the NFL programming in the fall I think Sirius falls short. Having a choice would be great.

Reply » Hating Sirius

I think "hate" is too strong a word for me, but having had Sirius for the past 7 months I'm certainly unimpressed. My beef is the lack of variety in the playlists and stations. Any station you select will repeat it self very quickly.

I think the best solution is a competely integrated IPOD where I can see the song info on my iDrive screen - flip through them from the steering wheel - and listen to a 5,000+ song playlist.

Reply » Hating Sirius

I've been an XM subscriber for years and love it. So when I went to buy my E90 and I did the research and realized that, unlike the E46, I could not simply use an adapter to get factory-like XM in my new car, I decided to try the Sirius 3-day free online trial to see if it was at all on par with XM. I really wanted a OE factory satellite radio install after having to use a separate controller and adapters in my old E36.

After three days of frequent listening, I realized just how much Sirius sucks compared to XM if you are subscribing for the music (which I am). The channel choices and playlists flat-out suck in comparison. And the DJs babble on and on (and on). On XM, hearing a DJ is rare and when you do, they are adding value in that they are talking about the band/artist that was just played and giving additional info on them. On Sirius, the DJs babble about themselves. One idiot went on for nearly three minutes about his runny nose before (finally) kicking off the next song, the beginning of which he talked over. Shut the f*ck up already and play some f*cking music. I'm not paying $13/mo to listen to you talk about your snot.

I just couldn't do it. I now have an XM MyFi unit in my E90, plugged into the ceneter console aux-in input. It's sloppy and the reception is spotty (because I didn't want to flat-out drape the antenna wire across the inside of the car to mount it externally) but I still infinitely prefer it over that Sirius crap.

Reply » Hating Sirius

I'm growing to like it. Yes, I HATE the sound quality but being able to always find a song on the radio is starting to appeal to me (Still hoping for a HD Radio retrofit however). Of note, my wife has XM in her MDX and it sounds MUCH worse than the Sirius in my BMW.

Reply » Hating Sirius

I think I am going to remove it from my order. I was on the fence about it anyway. Any reason to keep it?

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