I ended up with a free XM Sportscaster with 6 months of free service, but I didn't have anything to do with it. I don't spend enough time in my car for it to go there, and I already have XM in the home. So, for kicks, instead of letting it go to waste I decided to pick up a Boombox for it. This weekend I hooked it up, and spent some time with it.
Overall, I'm not too impressed with it. As you can see in the pic above, the Sportcaster clips into the big empty space and just kind of floats there. That, along with the shape and lack of handle (you can pick it up and move it using the concave surface at the top) make it not so portable. This is less boombox, and more of a set of speakers for someone who doesn't have a receiver to hook it up to. This is really more of a "bookshelf" type box than a portable radio.
Sound quality isn't that hot. There are no controls for treble/bass or anything else. What you see there is what you get. On/Off and Volume. Music wise, the 4" speakers and 3/4" tweeters don't sound any better than the average $50 Walmart/Target boombox. Voice sounds better, and you'll probably be happy with it if you mainly listen to sports or talk.
It was difficult getting a signal with it. I couldn't get anything stable without hooking up an external antenna to it. I even placed the boombox where I keep my home antenna for my other XM radio, and it would cut out while my regular one doesn't. This makes me think the antenna is subpar, or at least inadequate.
I can't reccomend this to anyone for any reason. There are better portable options, and better XM radios out there. This combination is kind of a lemon in my book, and the whole mess will probably end up on Ebay when the six months of service is up.
