[Sitre Magana]

A twenty dollar Crown AM/FM/cassette walkman has a better pair of headphones then this overpriced piece of ****. The reception is atrocious. You can hardly keep the signal stable even with those antenna headphones. The stiletto has too much annoying animation. The Wi-fi connection is a joke, and the sound quality is worse than AM Stereo. Don't get me started on how you can not record off the Internet. They take the time to put in fancy little graphics and ********* animation but they can't take the time to implement something simple like recording off the Internet. Like the Ipod, you have to punch through a maze of menus just to do the simplest of ****. I know of one benefit it has. If you throw it hard enough against the wall it will break and if a toddler is nearby often the child will laugh.

Part II the Logical Section

The content on Sirius stinks. Howard stern is so boring, and NFL games are meant to be watched on Television, not listened to on the radio. Music channels are a joke, with the chattery teeth D.J.s and the song repitition. Even "fans" like Steve Mehs cuss me out for critizing XM and Sirius whilst complaining about it themselves. The only advantage satellite radio has over FM is commercial-free music, which we all know, like cable tv and the internet, advertising will soar when a substantial amount of customers is obtained.

I think that the 12.95 a month is better spent on used tapes and C.D.s. I can control what I hear, and not some nobody like Nina Blackwood playing "Don't Disturb this groove" 3 times an hour. I've been ridiculed by people like Steve Mehs for enjoying cassettes, but in the end, I'm the one enjoying my personalized music collection while Stevie and his ilk suffer from buyer's remorse.

 

[Richard King]

If this is your first post, how could you have been "ridiculed by people like Steve Mehs"? And, please control the language if you wish to post again.

 

[sampatterson]

I agree with one thing. The headphones are unacceptable considering the price you pay for the unit. I do like the Sirius content, and the car kit+Stilleto is 3 times better than the S50 I replaced it with. Better sound, better UI, better connections, less hizz on FM broadcast. I would recommend it but get a good set of headphones if you are going to use it as an MP3/WMA player.

 

[Steve Mehs]

If this is your first post, how could you have been "ridiculed by people like Steve Mehs"?

At XMFan and Sirius Backstage. Mostly at XMFan though. For someone who really hates this so much he sure does spend a lot of time on the subject of radio and SDARS. Everyone knows my strong passion for satellite radio, but I don't post 'iPods Suck' threads at iLounge or other iPod message boards.

BTW - I love my iPod

 

[bluedogok]

As far as other forms of music, I have about 500 cd's and spend about $150 a month on new ones, around 300 cassettes (mostly self recorded from the early 80's when I worked in a record store), 100+ records and 65 8-tracks. Funny thing is, I can't remember the last time that I actually played a cassette or 8-track.

Unlike some people who I guess can't afford and therefore feel the need to bash them, I plan on getting one to add to my existing Sirius radios. I am listening to Buzzsaw right now and in the truck I listen to sports mostly. I want the Stilleto as a complement to my 40gb iPod to use on my motorcycle. That way if I want to listen to a game, I can and if I want to listen to some of my collection (which will not fit on the iPod) I can. I have the Etymotic ER6i ear speakers, any of the ear buds/headphones that you get with any gadget is usually where the cost was cut, even the Apple ear buds fall into that category.....better than some but not near as good as others available.

I grew up when most games were not on television so we had to listen to them on the radio. I guess those that have been pre-programmed and spoon fed their entertainment wouldn't understand about visualizing the game as it is broadcast on the radio. Most of the time when I listen to games on Sirius is when I am traveling so I wouldn't have access to my big screen and Sunday Ticket anyway, so it fills a need.

I guess I just don't feel the need to bash something that doesn't concern me and don't understand why it matters to those that feel the need.

 

[Richard King]

I'm up to about 4,000 songs on my hard drive right now, mostly copies of my record collection. A few weeks back I upgraded the hard drive in my laptop and am now using the old one as an external drive. It was either a 20 or 30G drive and I have now bounced music from the drive on this computer to it and FILLED it in the process. I now take it along with my laptop and run the laptop into the car through the cassette adaptor. I get music plus the voice of the GPS system through the car stereo. Quite nice. I really want to do the Car-puter that I mentioned on another post and have a USB input that I can plug the extra HD into for playback. Then again, I may not even need the extra HD for that application by simply placing all my music on the HD for the Car-puter. I will still do the XM or Sirius though because of the variety that I get of new stuff that I don't own. If people really like music, and I would rather listen to music than watch television, they need to be exposed to some new material once in a while. Not having any radio at all eliminates this option. I just ordered some new "desktop speakers" for my computer. They should be here later this week or early next. I can't wait. http://www.jblpro.com/lsr/lsr4328P.html I may even have to read the owner's manual. :lol:

 

[Steve Mehs]

Why do I feel out of place.

796 songs taking up 3.47GB worth of space on my iPod.

(4.85GB in Video, and about 1GB worth of unlistened to podcasts)

 

[Richard King]

Yep, gonna have to read the manual. :lol:

The RMC procedure produces a fairly loud swept sine wave calibration tone that can surprise you when you hear it for the first time. After pressing the RMC button, move away from the speaker. There is a five second delay prior to the sounding of the calibration tone.

 

[Sitre Magana]

If people really like music, and I would rather listen to music than watch television, they need to be exposed to some new material once in a while. Not having any radio at all eliminates this option.

No it don't. I haven't listened to the radio since 1994. Yet I know that Avril Lavingne is just about as aggravating as a screaming child. There are other ways to hear "new music", not the same garbage that Clearchannel/XM/Sirius is paid to play and force on us.

 

[Richard King]

I can't stand to watch MTV or it's clones (I am probably more against them than you are against radio). Where, other than some form of radio, be it off air or satellite, do you hear new music other than the "music" television channels? Television does have one good music channel though, but you probably don't watch it because it costs something. Tune into Rave sometime.

 

[Sitre Magana]

like i says, I work. I have been listening to just tapes at work for quite some time now but my co works still listen to the radio. One has Sirius and the other has XM. The one with XM will listen to the blend until "put your records on or black horse and cherry tree comes on. Then he will switch it to Sonny until they play their travelocity commercials. Then he switches it to the heart and listenes until they play some Kelly Clarkson then he switches it back to the blend. Now, the one with Sirius if he not listening to Howard Stern he's listening to movin' easy. Instead of Movin Easy, you might as well get a CD changer, put in Chicago's greatest hits, Barbra Striesand's greatest hits, Neil Diamond's greatest hits and a couple of 70's love song CD's and put it on random.

It seems that the XM guy spends most of his time changing stations.

 

[Steve Mehs]

I really don't know why I'm wasting my time, but, problems is that's all mainstream, so of course you’re going to hear familiar stuff. Sunny and The Blend are music of your life stations. Try The System, Chill, Underground Garage, Cinemagic, Enlighten, Franks Place, Standard Time, X Country, Radio Margaritaville, Spa 73.

I don’t listen to CDs, I never even purchased a CD, asides from blank ones. I have an iPod, I would never get a Inno or S100, portable satellite radio units don’t interest me.

 

[Richard King]

It appears that you are being exposed to more recent "stuff" than what is in your collection through your exposure to "radio". So, you ARE actually listening to radio and wouldn't know who any current artists are if you were not listening to radio, unless you are more adventurous than I suspect and just buy CD's at random through the throw the dart in the CD store method. I suspect you would have been arrested if you did that though.

 

[bluedogok]

I am in the process of re-ripping my entire CD collection, I ripped it many years ago at 128 and had some drive errors that I just put up with it for all of these years. I am ripping them twice, one for the iPod (AAC-160) to fit as many on there as I can and one for a 300gb hard drive (MP3-320) in the house to listen to at home and a copy of it at work. Before I started this process I was up to 9,000 songs and 65gb worth (which I still have on another drive). It will be more in space now but sound a little better.

I want to get the JVC AVX2 for my car with the Sirius connect box, that is a DVD that will do MP3-DVD discs, that will cut down on what I have to carry in the car.

 

[Richard King]

Quite the collection, I'm impressed. My problem is that while much of my music that I have transferred is on CD, I have a fairly large collection of LP's that I am gradually working on. I've probably transferred somewhere in the area of 200 LP's, but I still have about 3-400 to go (if I decide to eventually do them all). I haven't even started to think about the boxes full of reel to reel tapes with anywhere from 4-6 albums on each. I suspect I may have a serious shed problem on most of those, so they may be a lost cause.

I was amazed when I dubbed a customer's ancient tape (Shamrock brand) a while back. This tape hadn't been played for at least 35-40 years (he claimed) and I dubbed it to CD for him with no shed at all. Many of mine are in the 30 year old bracket and the last time I played some of them they shed so much that the heads had to be cleaned after each song. Some of them screached so much they were unplayable.

 

[bluedogok]

R2R depends on many factors, storage conditions seem to the most important. When I worked at Sound Warehouse we could trade 2 albums weekly, so that is where most of my cassettes came from. I traded albums and recorded them so that is why I ended up with so many tapes. I only have one cassette deck left (Yamaha) but I have started replicating what I have on cassette through downloads or CD's. We were in the transition to CD's when I worked there so I had a head start on that format.

 

[Richard King]

I have always heard that baking old tapes in a convection oven for a short time (I don't know how short or what temp) will bring them back to life long enough to get a copy done. I may just have to look into the "recipe" for that. I am sure it's on the net somewhere, and if it's on the net it has to be right. I just realized that I bought my first RtR in about 1970 or so, an old consumer Ampex model. I bought my second one (a Teac) at a store called Sound of Music in Minneapolis in about 1972 from a fellow by the name of Richard Schultz (sp). Sound of Music eventually morphed into this outfit called Best Buy and Schultz was (is?) the CEO.

I have lots of good music on those tapes. It would be a shame to lose (not loose) it.

 

[gb33]

I will agree the headphone antenna stinks, but that is about it. This is a very neat unit and allows me reception in the house, my car, wifes car, and out in the yard. THIS is what I want, and it does it. All the while looking sweet as hell.