I can always tell when our time with a particular long-term test vehicle is about to end. That's when the subscription to satellite radio ends and the electronics tell us to make a call to Sirius or (in the case of the 2009 Infiniti FX50) XM.
It's a sad moment, really. You never know how much you depend on satellite radio until it's gone, especially in a vehicle that has seen as many cross-country trips as this one.
When satellite radio first became available, there was a lot of talk about improved audio quality. Although, really, there wasn't much talk about satellite radio at all, since almost everyone was too busy downloading music onto his iPod to care about someone else's programming. But now that we have all these choices for audio entertainment in an automobile, I find the thing that makes satellite radio a great thing for me is the surprise factor.
You're never quite sure what you'll hear on satellite radio, whether it's a matter of changing from one genre to another or simply the sequence of music or programs. Everything is a surprise.
Even with an iPod memory full of music, an MP3 player always seems predictable even when it's selecting randomly, probably because you've loaded the music yourself. Also it's only playing music or programming that you've heard before. Meanwhile, conventional radio stations have become so rigorously formatted that the same loop seems to repeat every 21 minutes. And as far as talk radio goes, the only surprise is how angry and bad it is.
Maybe it's all in my head, but satellite radio seems to make the time pass on a cross-country trip in a far more pleasant way than other entertainment options. (It's particularly better than any kind of travel companion.) If it were my money, I'd spend it for a subscription.
So now that the 2009 Infiniti FX50 is about to disappear from our fleet, I'm scouting for another candidate for cross-country travel. Satellite radio is required.
Michael Jordan, Executive Editor @ 29,405 miles
mikeolan says:
02:07 PM, 01/29/10
I missed Sirius until I discovered the magic that is iPhone + Pandora.
carguy622 says:
02:10 PM, 01/29/10
I never really liked the XM radio in my Acura. The audio quality was much too compressed and digital sounding, and the number of commercial free stations kept dwindling.
bloodyr says:
02:38 PM, 01/29/10
In my experience with satellite radio (XM through DirecTV), the song lists are very limited. I used to listen to Lucy (90s music) when I worked from home, and I'd hear the same song 3 or 4 times in a 9 hour period. The sound quality sucked too.
rick8365 says:
03:28 PM, 01/29/10
I agree with Mr. Jordan - I like my satellite radio. I will say that I do notice a difference in audio quality when I switch over to CDs but the satellite is pretty good IMO.
pista says:
04:46 PM, 01/29/10
I agree wholeheartedly with your comments. The only annoyance is having to go without satellite radio when your subscription ends so that you may benefit from more aggressive pricing from the provider's "win back" promotions. Quite a bit of difference in regular subscription price to promotional price.
clarkma5 says:
08:23 PM, 01/29/10
I hate satellite radio...it's like cable TV. A million channels and nothing good's on. And the audio quality is really woeful...
jayrandall says:
09:06 PM, 01/29/10
You think Sat radio repeats songs??? Pandora wrote the book on repeat music.
When does the Long-term test of the FX50 come to an end?
jerome81 says:
01:53 AM, 01/30/10
I got Sirius within a month of its release... I have had it ever since. I have an iPod....with an aux jack in my car, but I NEVER use it. I almost always can find something I like on Sirius (I'm big on Octane 20), but when I'm tired of it, I've got blues and jazz and classical or talk radio. I enjoy blues a lot, but I don't know enough about it to be downloading off iTunes, so its always a treat to hear something on Sirius I otherwise wouldn't know existed.
I don't know that I'd ever go back to a car without it. Yes, the audio quality is a bit lacking, but I only really notice if I switch back and forth between a CD and Sirius.
And it is absolutely the best company on a road trip. My couple cross country drives were made much easier having all that variety to choose from. I would have looped through my iPod several times...and I agree, it always seems to be a repeat even if it is something I haven't listened to in years.
ptcdawg says:
07:06 AM, 01/30/10
In my experience with XM, the compression is too much to bear...it sounds horrible.
prince34 says:
08:57 AM, 01/30/10
I've been using XM for almost 2 years know. I understand some of the comments about compression, but only for the low bitrate online stream. The high bitrate stream only and the stream to the car are both at least decent mp3 quality.
One thing that no one else has mentioned that I really like on roadtrips is not having to find the next (fill in the genre) music station on regular radio.
And you don't have to cancel your subscription to get the promotional pricing. You just have to call up to cancel and get them to make you a deal right then and there.
ahightower says:
05:18 AM, 01/31/10
I'm an iPod guy myself. 20% music, 80% podcasts. By the way, I think Edmunds could probably put together a funny and informative weekly podcast to compete with those Autoblog nerds. Satellite radio is okay, I've had it in a few rental cars, but I wouldn't pay for it. I'd rather buy a new album on iTunes every now and then to expand my owned collection.
yellowmiata says:
06:20 AM, 02/ 1/10
I'll be sad when the FX goes, but I'll be interested in the resale price. Picking up an FX50s used is much more interesting to me than buying one new. If I were to spend near $60k on a vehicle, it'd have the engine behind me ;).
Cheers to IL for keeping us up to date on this FX, I've enjoyed it and was an avid reader of its blog.
Kevin
eblock2 says:
01:49 PM, 02/ 1/10
XM/Sirius is not up to most mp3 quality, the bitrate varies between 4 and 64 kbps.
I swear with XM, the better your stereo, the worse it sounds. All the compression artifacts get reproduced, it sounds worse than FM radio.