[josefresco]

"Why do I need satellite radio"

I'll answer my myself: For my car(s). SiriusXM just ... works. No pairing, no bluetooth on/off dance, no cables, no unpairing my wife's phone, no setting my car radio's source, Internet connection or not ... it just works. The only other time I listen to "satellite" radio is in my office, streaming from my Chromebook - which is just silly but don't judge me.

[01100011]

I've had Sirius for

<silence>

bugs me is that

<silence>

drive under a tree or overpass. Seriously, having

<silence>

really bugs me.

[freehunter]

I keep Sirius in my daily driver because the satellite cutouts are annoying, but so are cellular dead zones. And cellular dead zones are more common for me than satellite cutouts.

[LambdaComplex]

...Yeah, that's pretty accurate

[josefresco]

my

<buffering>

LTE

<buffering>

Does that too

[handruin]

I've had very few buffering issues with Spotify via LTE over the years when compared the constant dropouts from my SiriusXM in my various cars that have had this service. SiriusXM audio quality is also terribly compressed and tinny in addition to the constant drop outs. I've never had a good experience with their product.

Spotify can also download large quantities of music and playlists...so with minimal planing you will have no buffering issues.

[davemp]

Having your service pre-download stations/playlists when on wifi helps with this.

[superkuh]

Actually owning your music and storing it on your devices in open formats helps even more.

[josefresco]

Hard with a 16 (actually 14) GB iPhone. I deleted my iOS music library (to free up space) and only stream now. Even with the LTE issues, it's (streaming) better than listening to the same couple dozen songs and dealing with iTunes.

[jbob2000]

This just sounds like a problem with your car's stereo. For me, I get in the car, plug my phone in (always have a car-only charger cable), press "Media" on the dash, and it picks up whatever was playing on my phone.

I don't have sirius built into my car, I think this is an american car thing (did sirius pay them buckets of money for this integration? methinks so). If I wanted it, I'd have to have a ugly receiver taped somewhere on my dash.

[josefresco]

*Multiple cars. High tech, low tech doesn't matter - it's a shit show. You know what still works? FM radio.

[freehunter]

You must have a great local radio market, then. I wouldn't consider any of my local FM stations to be "working" radio.

[josefresco]

It actually rebounded (post Internet era) and exploded locally (I live 1.5 hours from Boston). I listen to NPR, a top 40 station when the kids are in the car, and there's a local rock station that's just as good as any SiriusXM channel (the kids aren't wild about that one). More commercials sure, but sometimes you luck out and your 5-10 min car ride has tunes the whole time.

[handruin]

This isn't just an American car thing. My past two Japanese vehicles and two German vehicles had SiriusXM built into the radio.