[Rob Hood]

OK, I'm up for renewal on my XM subscription, and I've got free Sirius in my VW Jetta for a few more days. Since sampling the Sirius for the last couple of months, I do like their music selection (classic rock and country stations primarily) better than XM. Both carry the same newstalk stations I listen to as well. I do like XM's traffic coverage better than Sirius' for the Phoenix area, however, although IMO neither does a better job of traffic coverage than the local AM/FM stations. Sirius has NASCAR, but since I'm no longer making 7-hour road trips, that's not necessarily a high priority for me. My XM is portable between my truck and Z, but the Jetta is integral to the OE radio and I would rather be portable (which I know I can get with Sirius as well).

So, who has which one and likes/dislikes? Is it a tomay-to/tomah-to issue? Less filling? Tastes great?

[slowTA]

It sounds like you have both so you're stuck making that decision. I'm a Sirius subscriber with a portable radio. There are a few things to consider. The XM radios have worse FM transmitters than Sirius, but the new Sirius radios aren't as good as the older ones. I have an older version and can transmit from my room out to the shed about 75 feet and most of that has the house in the way. From what I hear you can't get that with a newer Sirius radio or, apparently, any XM. Ebay has a good selection of older Sirius radios... if you want it to be portable. Some of the XM radios have nicer features, but I'm in it more for the content. Sirius has 1 show that XM will never have... and I'm addicted to it.

One thing I noticed when my mom had XM's free trial is that her station didn't have any DJs, just a computer set to shuffle. Not sure if many channels are like that or not. Also XM supposedly has commercials on the music stations. Another note is that I had to adjust the radio settings in my car to get good sound quality. With my Delco radio set to rock, the talk stations sounded bad. I set it to either Jazz or News and it was fine, something to consider for either Sirius or XM.