GM, Clear Channel and Direc TV are all investors in XM. Each for their own corporate interests (Clear Channel for content sharing, GM for technology sharing in their vehicles and Direc TV for technology and content sharing through their music programming channels on Direc TV music channels).
XM's music channels, by genre, are less defined than Sirius. There is a lot of music overlap in what they call pop, rock, alternative, dance, disco etc ... meaning - you hear a lot of the same music on a variety of "genre" channels.
Sirius has a more narrow definition of what is pop, rock, alternative, dance, etc ... and then separate from those genre channels, they have mix channels and all things new channels.
The sports channel line ups are definetly a personal preference. Same with Howard or Opie and Anthony.
I have rented many cars with XM - it is in almost every Avis (formerly owned by GM, still partially controlled by GM) rent-a-car.
Sirius, by far, has better music, better channel definition and better entertainment content.
The only one thing that stinks about Sirius and XM is that they claim that the "digital" music is CD quality. It's not. In fact, it's sub-par AT BEST. When integrated in a factory radio, the sound quality is just OK. When using an after-market option with FM Modulation or Wireless transmittal to your factory radio (IE portable units) the sound quality stinks.
Sirius transmits at about 32kbs downstream - even crummy downloads from I-tunes come in better than that - 128kbs. CD quality is 700kbs, or better.
When integrated in your factory radio though, you can do some adjustments on the sound settings to compensate and not have that low grade static and buzz that is there on the aftermarkets.
Go for a Mopar Sirus receiver hooked into your Chrysler/Jeep radio for the car and maybe a home receiver or plug your sound system at home into your computer and listen through the internet - not the greatest sound at home, but free and still not worse than those portable units.
unixxx said:
In my opinion Sirius has better channels and music, plus it has Howard Stern, NFL, Bam and other talk channels that I honestly don't listen to. Note that only the music channels are commercial free on Sirius, not the talk channels. Clear Channel made a large investment in XM early on and as a result they have started airing commericals on music channels on XM. Technically, Sirius should have better coverage in the woods as they have satellites in a higher orbit than XM, but XM will have better coverage in cities as they have more ground based repeaters. Sirius can be factory integrated with the Liberty while XM can't. I'd personally choose Sirius mainly because I like the programming more and it's truly commercial free music. If you have broadband you can listen to both services online for free for three days via their respective websites.
