Should I get XM radio? (1 Viewer)

[StephenT]

My dream is to have my entire CD collection ripped onto an in dash hard drive that I could just put on random and drive 'til my heart's content. However, such devices are few, and I'm dubious about support for them. I don't like that you can't buy them in B&M stores.

Basically I'm tired of the one CD at a time thing in my car. Sure I could get a CD changer, but 6 or even 12 CDs even on random is less than what I would like.

It seems my best option is XM. I've looked at their station selection and the ones I would listen to most are commercial free. If they're anything like the satellite TV music stations, I think I would be pretty happy.

So if anyone has XM radio, I'd love a review. Do you love it, just like it, or hate it? Any problems with how it works or with the music selection? Thanks.

 

[StephenT]

Another question. Does anyone have Sirius? It looks like all of their music stations are commercial free.

 

[Ryan L B]

not all of the xm stations are comercial free. The ones that have commercials and are music related are owned by clear channel. Also, they usually don't repeat the same song every hour and they play the good versions of all of the songs but you can get them blocked.

 

[John_Bonner]

StephenT,
Have you seen this: Kenwood Music Keg?
A 10GB removable hard drive made especially for the car.

 

[StephenT]

John, I have seen something similar to that Kenwood.

I just found out there's a Pioneer head unit that has a 10 gig drive built in, and you can actually put in a CD and hit record to rip music to the drive. Also it is XM ready, and it plays MP3's on CDs as well as CD-R and CD-RW. It's not cheap, but I think that's the future (satellite + hard drive + FM/AM + CD + CD-R etc.) Pretty damn cool.

 

[Darren Davis]

^I saw that Pioneer head unit in a Hi-Fi Home/Car theater shop and it is about $2000 so prepare to shell out some cash. But definitely cool, nonetheless.

About XM, all of the people I've talked to that have used XM really like it but the only drawback is that there are too many good songs on at the same time. Is that really a con? Maybe it's time to get a Tivo-type of head unit that can record a song from one channel while you're listening to another.

NP: Relient K - Anatomy of the Tongue in Cheek