Satellite Radio Q&A

I searched on this topic but only found a smattering and thought I'd try to get some answers in one place from those in the know... I need more music. I want Satellite radio. I'm into jazz, classical, blues, international beats, and electronic music. I love comedy and am not a big sports fan. I have the Bose stereo but do not have PCM or the CD changer. I want to have it directly hooked up to MOST and not through FM. Is Sirius or XM better given my preferences? Either one makes a small head unit which fits in the cubby behind the shifter. Does either brand have better reception or service in general? Do I go just deal with dealer or a local audio company (Car Toys or better) or will they screw it up? Is Porsche as someone mentioned coming out with an option this Christmas which allows you to more easily or directly hook this up in which case I'll wait? Can either be installed so totally hidden do you have to have the antenna visible up on the dash by the windshield? How have people installed satellite radios without PCM and how does the interface work without it? Thanks! -Steve

I bought a small XM radio unit that fits nicely into the small hole behind the shifter, and seems to be stable. It tramsmits via the fm band, but it seems to work well. I can't compare XM with Sirius, but I have been with XM since the beginning and wouldn't be without it. I understand from a high end audio shop near my work that a build in unit will be available in the near future at around 2K.

Answers to your questions below... Is Sirius or XM better given my preferences? Either one makes a small head unit which fits in the cubby behind the shifter. - Right now there isnt a MOST solution for either XM or Sirius, so FM modulation either over-the-air or through a inline antenna hookup are the only options I am aware of. Along with a very expensive PCM retrofit and satellite radio module upgrade option available from Suncoast Porsche. Does either brand have better reception or service in general? -This is a tough question to answer as they actually operate quite differently from each other. XM uses two geo-stationary satellites located at the equator over both the east and west coast. Sirius uses three satellites in a highly inclined elliptical orbit which allows them to have a oblong "figure 8" coverage path. This allows Sirius to provide higher "look angles" to your anttenna and theoretically less need for terrestrial repeaters. Because of this XM typically has more terrestrial repeaters then Sirius esp. in urban areas where there can be more blockage of the look angle to their satellites on the equator. Both broadcast in the S-band (2.3GHz) There is actually a very good write-up and animation on this at the following link... http://www.dogstarradios.com/sirasasecoma.html Bottom line is they are both comparable in terms of performance just accomplish it very differently. Do I go just deal with dealer or a local audio company (Car Toys or better) or will they screw it up? - Since I believe FM integration is the only way to go unless you spend a tremendous amount of money to retrofit with PCM and add the Cayenne Satellite Radio module (available through Suncoast), its a fairly easy do-it-yourself install for over-the-air integration. A little more work to do an in-line FM antenna installation. Is Porsche as someone mentioned coming out with an option this Christmas which allows you to more easily or directly hook this up in which case I'll wait? - I am not aware of this, but someone else may know more... Can either be installed so totally hidden do you have to have the antenna visible up on the dash by the windshield? -Two option I have seen are: 1. running the antenna cable through to the front luggage compartment and mounting the antenna on the outside next to the windshield wipers (between the hood and windshield). 2. routing the antenna to the back by the cargo net and allow the antenna to receive the broadcast through the hatchback window. How have people installed satellite radios without PCM and how does the interface work without it? - I think the above answers explain this. IMO i think Sirius has a little better programming then XM, but its really personal preference. Sirius studios are headquartered in NYC and XM is in DC. Mike

I was going to try to run the antenna to the front trunk and stuck it underneath the plastic in the area between the base of the windshield wipers, until I realized how small the XM antennas have become lately, so I just left it on the passenger-side dash. It's barely noticeable, I've had to point it out to people, and even if you do see it, it doesn't look bad, even against my sand beige interior. If you happen to notice it from outside the car, I think it's small enough that most people would just assume it's part of the car. Sirius has Howard Stern. XM has ....Oprah. People who have had both have told me that pop music-wise they are similar overall. I guy into metal told me he prefers XM. My brother chose XM because they cover his college sports. But none of those you listed in your preferences. I chose XM just because I had it since it started, and you can get a "family plan" if you have multiple units. One disappointing thing about XM lately though is that certain music channels now play occasional ads (the same ones over and over) - I'm not talking the TV news feed channels, but the actual music channels. They did this a couple of years ago, playing JC Penney ads, but then they stopped. Now they started up again with these start-your-own-business ads and this acne medication ad.

Although a Sirius subscriber, I found this XM receiver that transmits over the RDS spectrum to give you in-dash information on what your are listening to on XM. Pretty slick. http://www.crutchfield.com/S-hMXuSu8HSXW/cgi-bin/ProdView.asp?g=247350&I=700XMDRDS[/URL]

There has been discussion on ******** about people integrating a Sirius receiver into their MOST bus on the Porsche Cayenne. You might want to take a look at the forums over there. Hardware-wise, not really. What you need to decide is what content you prefer. XM tends to play more esoteric/less-known music on their channels, Sirius is more mainstream. If you want MLB broadcasts, XM is the way to go. If you want the NFL, NBA, Howard Stern, Martha Stewart, etc. then only Sirius has that content. I personally have Sirius, and I couldn't be happier. Sirius has been catching up to XM in terms of subscriber numbers for the past 4 quarters, and XM's stock price has plummeted from $30+ to $10 recently. It also helps that I own 10000 shares of Sirius stock. I would say they're about the same. You will still need an antenna with good line-of-sight to the open sky for the most part.

Unfortunately, it doesn't exist. That product has been vaporware for over a year now. According to some posts over at ********, Crutchfield contacted some early buyers and asked if they wanted their money back because they had no anticipated shipping date of the product. If you search online for the product, all you will get right now is press releases from when they first announced the product around august 2005. But yes, that would probably be the "cleanest" install without having to spend the few thousand $ including installation to do it using the current PCM solution.

You can install the Porsche Cayenne Sirius tuner (about $1000 from Porsche) if you have the MOST system with PCM. If you don't have PCM you can install PCM (about $4000 from Porsche), then install the tuner. So if you have $5K burning a hole in your pocket you can surely get it done, and if you find someone selling either PCM or the Sat Radio tuner at a discount then probably less, oh plus labor to install it...

So is there an audio quality difference between MOST connected versus the direct FM antenna connector route and how much so? And can you connect to MOST without PCM?

The fundamental issue is how to get the signal to the HU. Some receivers have simple line-in units. or aux-in. You still receive the satellite signal via something like XMDIRECT and them it plugs into the HU Others use an adapter (like BLITZSAFE). XMDIRECT plugs into the Adapter and the adapter in the CD changer wires (IF the car is prewired for a CD changer). These adapters basically make the HU think the satellite signals are CDs. The worst method is FM modulation. The satellite receiver will pick up the signal and rebroadcast on an over-the-air FM signal. The obvious problem with that is as you travel, you may encounter FM stations xmitting on the same channel as you. Finally you can do direct FM. The satellite box connects directly into the FM antenna, blocks all other signals, and its as good as ... FM radio. Now some purists will not like this method because its not a direct interface but the fact is, its like an FM signal quality. Your not talking CD quality. As to Porsche, there are NO adapters and NOTHING to plugin. If you had PCM, Porsche sells the satellite modules for the Cayenne and I do believe Suncoast sells them for over $1K. However, the last I heard Porshe told dealers to STOP selling them and DO NOT install them in any car other than Cayennes. Why? I have no clue. If you look at the Suncoast website now, they have added a Caveat about "availability" therefore something is going on. I decided I wasn't going to wait anymore, talked to somebody at a dealership, found out who they used, and it was one of those guys who will come to your house and install. A local dealer uses this company for ALL their satellite radio installs. For XM, you can pick up XMCommander, a tiny, flat interface. The interface fits perfectly in the little cubbyhole at the bottom of the center stack in front of the shifter. He routed the satellite antenna to sit beside the GPS antenna under the front bonnet near the windshield under the carbon fiber. The satellite signals, just as for GPS, pass through the Carbon Fiber. You never see anything. Very clean. XMCommander comes with a tiny remote that is very cool. As to quality? Well I've had four XM radio setup's now. One a direct interface via aux (satellite radio ready HU), and two via adapters that made the HU think satellite was a CD Changer. I can say I see absolutely no difference in sound quality between any of the four. However, even better, the XMcommander allows you to do random access to any of the 225 stations while the other methods forced you to literally move up and down the dial one at a time. THAT can be a REAL pain!

I have the CDR24 with CD Changer, that's it. I would like to know how to 'replace' the CD Changer with Sirius radio . (I installed Sirius in my MINI a couple years ago, but it was all plug 'n play.) I've read so many threads about Pioneer, Denison, PCM, etc. that my head is spinning and I don't fully understand a lot of it. What I would like is the simplest solution possible with my existing H/U that will give a decent quality audio. I think Chows is close with: Can anyone tell me more? Is there a similar adaptor for Sirius? Can you point me to install instructions/pics or a website? Thanks for any help you can give!

Our cd changers are fiberoptic, hence the only way we can tap into that direct audio feed is with the navtv or Dension interface, like I've done in my Cayman S . Now, if you get PCM, you can get the Cayenne Sirius or XM interface and hook it up, the cheapest you will probably find it is about $1,000. NAVTV also has a Sirius interface that you can use with the PCM and it effectively reports station names and songs and is about $600. If you stick with your CDR24 and and want XM or Sirius, get it installed with an inline FM modulator, like Chows has done, the sound quality isn't bad at all and there's no static or hiss if you ground it properly. - Suneet

Not what I wanted to hear. But thanks for the quick reply, Suneet! With that clarification, I think I may go the route of the Pioneer AVIC D3.