1loudlex

Ok, just out of spite, why the F$#% did you buy the cheapest POS jensen product??? I know it was the dumb F$#%s at circut city right??? I work at best buy and am just giving you are hard time, but for real... You own a lexus and you cant at least buy a better product then jensen????? I could have told you that the stupid thing would have broke in that short of time!!!! I have had XM for a year, and I now have Sirrus and like it better. I got it for free, both of them, from my job.. I live in Chicago, and have had Xm during the heaveist snow storms we had last year and no problems at all!!! Get the kenwood system if you are going to stick with Sirrus.. Just a word of advise.... Pay the extra money..

Adam " Lexist "

LexusRules

thanks man!! can u also tell me, how much is subscription? thanks!

dswallow

hehe... well, yeah, I know. But it was a matter of what would fit in the damn car. The sales guy actually had convinced me to go with the AudioVox unit originally, but then when we went to do it, found that he couldn't get product for about 2 weeks, and this was an impulse purchase. I wanted it that day, installed.

As to the Kenwood, that was another option, but I don't like the small display, so it wasn't in the running. I'm not sure I even saw the Kenwood the first time I looked, though -- but anyway, I never liked the Kenwood brand, so I would've been biased against it had I saw it then anyway.

More expensive isn't always better product, though. Look at DVD players these days. Some of the no-name-brands actually perform much better than the majors, and offer more compatibility with various formats, and usually play slide shows, MP#'s, VCD's. MPEG's, and more, whereas you're lucky if a major brand name DVD player even plays all regular DVD's.

With no idea which way Lexus is going on the factory-radio support of satellite radio, IF they go with Sirius compatibility, I will trade in the RX300 for a new one when I can get something properly integrated into the Lexus dash... as long as I can get perforated leather interior. :-) Boys & their toys, ya know!


Sirius is $12.95/month. But they do have a special offer at the moment, or at least did when I had mine installed 3 weeks ago, where you get 3 months free service with a year's subscription, so at least for the first year it works out to the same price as XM.

engin_ear

iTrader: (1)

For Sirius:

Jensen has (HAD?) the best display as far as info (not aesthetics), shows more info at once, channel name/num,track, title. Audio quality and product quality is highly suspect, as you've now experienced.

Kenwood is next one up. Quality is better, display OK, but less info displayed at once.

Clarion is the best offered right now, and apparently will be for some time to come, unless they get one-upped by Panasonic, when their receivers finally hit the street (next year?). Product quality is good, audio quality excellent, display excellent, but only one piece of info at a time, need to scroll. (much like most others). Has RCA outputs that Kenwood does not have.

I'd much rather have purchased an Alpine or Eclipse unit. Alpine is XM-only, Eclipse not offering anything yet (Get with it, guys!).

Audiovox not recommended unless you're really intent on saving money. Kenwood is generally much better choice. Audiovox has a long history of making mediocre products at best.

dswallow

If Kenwood & Clarion are so good, why can't they actually provide a display with more than 9 characters on it? Sheesh. Both those companies should just go out of business for that blunder. More and more (over-the-air-FM/AM) aftermarket car radios are providing practically high-res color LCD's these days so they can display anything, yet satellite radio receivers from the alleged "good brands" can't even be bothered to have a continuous band of dot-matrix on one line? Look close; those are individual blocks of dots, separated by at least 1 or 2 dots-width of blankness. Oh yeah... they can't even manage to use a display capable of showing a lower case descender.

My favorite on the moderately-priced-high-end side of car audio was always Alpine. Unfortunately as you noted, Alpine is XM-only. Their loss.

If any one of these companies was run by someone with a brain, they'd have the basic receiver and an assortment of interchangeable head/remote units of all shapes and sizes. At least it'd create a secondary market for them when people decide they want something different.

There's just one chipset right now that receives and decodes Sirius signals; every one of the available receivers uses it. It wouldn't surprise me to find there's a reference receiver design they all are pretty much adhering to as well. It won't be till the 2nd or 3rd generation of receivers that functional rather than mostly cosmetic differences begin to appear.

And by that time I sure hope Lexus has figured out what they're doing, and that they decide to support both systems. I'd much rather have that flexibility than the end result of some insider deal between the auto company and a satellite radio service, even if it happened to be the one I prefer.

engin_ear

iTrader: (1)

Agreed, especially on your points about the display - VERY frustrating. It's amazing to me how manufacturers can completely forget everything about the way their other products are designed when they design a new product. There's only a few select companies that consistently get it right.

Sirius is currently working on a single-chip solution, most likely due out next year. The current reciever chipset is 8 chips (if I remember correctly), and will heat your car on a cold winter day.

I think you'll see Lexus side with one or the other, falling in line with all of the other car manufacturers. I'll guess that they are signing exclusive agreements...