SiriusXM Best Receiver

RicardoSiqueira

I need to integrate the SiriusXM service in an upcoming project and I am looking for some suggestions on what to get that plays well under AMX controlling. It would be nice to have a RS-232 or IP control that shows feedback on Tps on the stations available. Any suggestions?

John Nagy

The dual tuner from NuVo (t2 series) is well priced with a very sane 2-way protocol on RS232 ($630 from Amazon). It has two AM/FM/Sirius tuners, each Sirius requires the common outboard add-on ($50).

For better budgets, the ADA tuners are high quality with great metadata, available in 1, 2, 3, and 4 tuner chassis. Not cheap but outstanding sound and made in the USA. RS232.

ANTEX still makes a single tuner with a good protocol. It used to be in a triple chassis, now just singles. Same protocol. RS232.

The Sirius franchise (standard) receiver is hard to implement but is discussed several places here in the forums. RS232.

Convert any to IP with a generic $100 adapter.

There used to be a lot more choices... they dried up as XM and SIRIUS folded together and started looking dangerous to support with hardware.

Another choice is Sirius via broadband, no antenna mess, plus Pandora, Rhapsody, and a thousand FM stations from around the world. Good choices include the MMS from AUTONOMIC and the products from REQUEST... not so good for integration, APPLE TV, ROKU, BOXEE. Why not? 2 way is virtually impossible, you need a TV to navigate.

I wish SQUEEZEBOX were in the running. A moving protocol, a required PC/external additional server, etc. make it a loser to try to resell integration and not lose your shirt chasing it.

My opinions, all. Others will share theirs, and all are true.

vining

In addition to those I often use the Denon TU-604 which has card slots to add various types of tuners. It has 6 slots so you can have multiples of the same tuner types if you choose. AM/FM, HD, Sirus/XM.

the8thst

I caution against Request these days. It works fine for local music, but internet radio and Pandora support is horrible. It seems that they send out a tech note about once a month saying Pandora is redesigning their system and Request Pandora support will be broken until a patch is released. Request is the only system I am aware of that is having these struggles with "Pandora constantly updating it's system". Also, I don't think there is any Sirius through Request.

The Sirius branded tuners have a good module available from AMX, but QA on the hardware side is horrible and it sometimes takes 3 or 4 tries to get a unit that works well.

I have used the ADA tuners twice and have zero complaints with them.

I am VERY curious to try This Small Computer/Squeezebox. I have heard it uses the same Squeezebox protocol, can be configured for 4 independent zone outputs, and supports all the third party apps (Pandora, Sirius, Slacker, Rhapsody, etc) and all for $429.

I would love to hear John's feedback on this unit if he picked one up for testing and threw some Squeezebox code at it. I would do it myself, but I don't have working Squeezebox code and I cannot justify buying a license at full price from RocketGUI (although their implementation looks awesome) just to test out a new piece of hardware.

ericmedley

I cannot 'un-recommend' Squeezebox enough. My beef is not with how they work on any given day. they do. But, they are seemingly always breaking stuff that works, changing proocol and whatnot.

I've used the Elan, Sirius brand and Marantz and like them all.

John Nagy

The Squeeze platform looked to be a great mix of low cost and high quality content. The nature of the "community code" project makes it a moving target, inappropriate for professional integration. You can't afford to replace code at all your installations a couple times a year when they arbitrarily (and without ability to opt out) change the way the system works. If the labor doesn't kill you, your customers will as they will blame you for selling them the system that they perceive works only occasionally.

This could change. But there are no signs that it will.

Note that the VORTEXBOX at the SMALL COMPUTERS link has other good uses, including as a standalone media server and as a portable network-attached rip station for MMS (which has no CD drive!).

We've noticed only a couple short outages for Pandora on the Request, never more than a matter of days, the update was automatic and required no integration changes, only a reboot of the Request. The Request architecture requires a unique implementation of Pandora - the entire song downloads and only then plays. This gives the Request the ability to rewind and even completely replay a song repeatedly, as long as it has not completely ended playing. This is unique to Pandora support... and probably part of why they have more trouble than others when Pandora adjusts things.

And yes, no Sirius on Request, sorry I forgot that. Radio is pretty good, but does require using their web interface to pick stations for listing in your on screen and panel menus.

LATE EDIT: I just now noticed PANDORA is out of service at this moment on REQUEST... no "Update" available yet. Oh well. Note that RADIO remains uninterrupted when Pandora has had issues.

jimmyw

I recommend the SC-H1, you can either use a serial connect kit, or you can use a parallax Propeller and the code I posted earlier to make a dual sc-h1 controller.

Jimmy

Joe Hebert

I had an SCH1 (~ $70) for personal use and it went belly-up for no apparent reason in less that a year. I found out from the supplier that it’s not that uncommon for that piece to do so.

The SCH2P (~ $130) is a much better unit and worth the extra $ in my opinion. Aside from the RS-232 control there is a front panel display and you can change stations manually if you want. The SCH2P has been working great and has been flawless from an RS-232 control standpoint.

I got mine from tss Radio:
http://www.tss-radio.com/products/sirius-connect-home-tuner-for-professional-installation-sch2p


On my real jobs the ADA tuners have been spec’d most of the time. I don’t know the cost but I imagine they are considerably more expensive. I’ve never heard anything bad about the ADA tuners.

the8thst

Joe Hebert wrote: »

I had an SCH1 (~ $70) for personal use and it went belly-up for no apparent reason in less that a year. I found out from the supplier that it’s not that uncommon for that piece to do so.

The SCH2P (~ $130) is a much better unit and worth the extra $ in my opinion. Aside from the RS-232 control there is a front panel display and you can change stations manually if you want. The SCH2P has been working great and has been flawless from an RS-232 control standpoint.

I got mine from tss Radio:
http://www.tss-radio.com/products/sirius-connect-home-tuner-for-professional-installation-sch2p


On my real jobs the ADA tuners have been spec’d most of the time. I don’t know the cost but I imagine they are considerably more expensive. I’ve never heard anything bad about the ADA tuners.

The SCH2P is the one that I used to use all of the time, but quality has severely dropped off in the last 6-8 months. I ended up replacing the unit 4 times in the last two installs I used it because it would keep dropping satellite signal. I would pull power and then it would reaquire sat signal about 15 minutes after it booted up again. I had 3 in a row that showed the same behavior. The 232 was solid though.