markcincinnati

BMW's come with 12 months free subscription FWIW. More than enough time to hook you.

dk1

This highly depends what and when you are listening to. Satellite radio allocates different bandwidth to different channels and shift them during the day. In my experience listening to rock stations during the day compares to maybe 64 kbit MP3 - way worse than FM on a bad day. I also found that the signal fades too often if you drive in the right lane (close to trees), especially if it's cloudy.

These days you can install Pandora on iPhone and have the same music for free in much better quality. The whole business model of paying insane money to personalities like Howard Stern in hopes of attracting subscribers in not sustainable. Wireless access devices like smartphones will eventually kill satellite radio.

markcincinnati

I listen regularly to no more than 5% of the stations on Sirius (and, I have DirecTV at home which offers the music channels from Sirius.) I have listened once or twice to Howard Stern. I got Sirius 'cause it came with my 2005 Audi and my wife's 2005 BMW; then when we bought a 2009 Audi and 2008 BMW, we just continued with Sirius -- only the BMW offered a factory HD selection, and, despite my being underwhelmed with the fidelity of HD, I do love the novelty of the additional HD programming.

I listen to Deep Tracks, Spa 73, Classic Vinyl, Classical Pops, Watercolors and a few other music channels that I "surf" between. I also listen to the Fox News Channel and CNBC and a few other non-music channels; from time to time I listen to sports if I am on the road during a game or race.

The first five channels I mentioned above typically seem to have a wide frequency range (there are highs and lows -- sometimes the lows rattle my sunglasses if I leave them in the "map pockets" in the door (I have the B&O system which does have highs and lows, that is.) Classic vinyl does, from time to time seem compressed, Spa 73, the jazz channel (Watercolors) and classical pops seem much less so, and compression is evident sometimes on Deep Tracks. So overall, with the surround effect REAR set to 3/4ths, I have the illusion of both a decent frequency range and most of the time a decent dynamic range.

Sat may not be the best -- I just find the variety and the announcers (well most of them) and the lack of commercials worth a one time lifetime payment. I rarely use the CD changer, stopped using an external player all together, once I found Sirius and love it love it love it.

Couple all of this with the B&O system, and this is the best sound yet (in any Audi I have owned.) Hopefully this medium will continue to evolve or, it will die and something better will come along -- and car mfgrs will adopt and adapt to that.

Driving it like I live!

need_TQM

HD radio is similar to DirecTV -- the stream is digital and has a fixed upper limit on how much data can be transmitted. They can use the bits for either higher quality, or more channels. The masses spoke and preferred new channels to high quality. Probably the same for XM and Sirius. I just know the few channels I tried to listen to were very "swishy" -- obvious artifacts of compression and made me not even care about what content they did have at that quality level.

With support for Ipod and 16GB SDHC cards, I really have very little need for a subscription music service in my car.

I'd think that this medium will evolve to the lowest common denominator -- it's the most profitable.

CEB

...is not the quality, but the fact that you can drive long distances without losing signal. If you drive more than an hour or so then your FM/AM signal is bound to fade and you have to find a new station.

I can drive cross country and listen to one station - even if it isn't the best quality...

Spacecadet_CC

That reminds me - I need to call to initialize my trial. When I picked up my car in May it had not been done. I've been so busy that I haven't really thought about it except for once or twice when I my cell wouldn't dial the 888 number in the car... I would hope that they would honor the trial as the message clearly says it has not yet been initialized.

Love My A5

If you're trial has expired, call Sirius and ask for the "Win Back" promotion. They will give you a year for about $77. You get in the car while on the phone and they send some signal and bam. You're back to surfing for music in just a few minutes.

Moviela

Here I thought I was the only one that a problem with every single encounter with Sirius customer service. No wonder the stock has dropped so low it has to look up to see the curb on Wall Street.

Blake P

8 months and counting...

Only listened to it when I got the car until I was able to get my hands on an iPod cable.

BMWBig6

Mine seemed to last 6 months, at which time I started receiving renewal notices in the mail. It didn't actually cut off until the 7th month for me.