Sirius XM or Spotify ?

 

I have Sirius XM and listen to ch16, The Blend. Only station I listen to, nothing else interests me. The Blend is an adult contemporary channel. Is anybody familiar with the Blend and what is offered on Spotify. I was told Spotify also has channels. Do they have a channel VERY similar to the Blend? My wife tried it once but said you had to make your own playlists.

For me, Spotify at $9.99 and month would be the same price but would allow me to listen anywhere. I have 6GB of data on my cell plan and don't even use 1GB so data is not a problem.

Any input on Spotify channels?

Thanks

Sirius XM Or Spotify ?

Are you comparing Sirius XM on a satellite radio to Spotify on a phone? Or, are you comparing Sirius XM streaming to Spotify?

In either case, this is what I would. I would drive to a Best Buy near me and buy a Simple Mobile SIM card for $1.00. That includes free 3 months of SiriusXM streaming.

Then, after those three months are over, I would sign up for the Spotify free 60 day trial.

At the end of that trial, assuming you do this soon, you are now in mid-September. Then, simply ask yourself, Spotify or XM-Sirius? You should know by then.

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/simple-mobile-keep-your-own-pho...

https://www.spotify.com/us/legal/new-60-days-free-trial-term...

I have Sirius, Does Spotify have channel similar

dbusguy wrote:

I have Sirius XM and listen to ch16, The Blend. Only station I listen to, nothing else interests me. .........

I was told Spotify also has channels. Do they have a channel VERY similar to the Blend?

I am looking for info from someone who is familiar with Spotify to say yes or no as to whether they have a channel similar to The Blend.

I have been to their website but cannot find what I am looking for and it is easier to hear from someone with user knowledge and can recommend or not if the service is the same or similar.

Thanks

Sirius XM Or Spotify ?

I just got a year of XM...

dbusguy wrote:

I have Sirius XM and listen to ch16, The Blend. Only station I listen to, nothing else interests me. The Blend is an adult contemporary channel. Is anybody familiar with the Blend and what is offered on Spotify. I was told Spotify also has channels. Do they have a channel VERY similar to the Blend? My wife tried it once but said you had to make your own playlists.

For me, Spotify at $9.99 and month would be the same price but would allow me to listen anywhere. I have 6GB of data on my cell plan and don't even use 1GB so data is not a problem.

Any input on Spotify channels?

Thanks

... for $60.00. You have to play hard ball with them, but if you do, you can get them to knock down their rates significantly. They would rather that you pay them something than to get nothing out of you.

--
With God, all things are possible. ——State motto of the Great State of Ohio

.

Jim1348 wrote:

https://community.spotify.com/

Thanks for the link. Didn't see the answer I was looking for but I'll keep looking

Pandora?

I know that's not one of your choices, but I prefer Pandora over both of your choices. You can select the artists or type of music you like and shuffle them for your listening enjoyment. Just a thought.

News

I used to have Sirius XM and enjoyed listening to the various news channels they offered. The problem was that unlike the music channels, the news channels were loaded with ads.

SQ - Sound Quality

I find the sound quality so poor on car reception that I stick to my own playlists from an SD card loaded with flac files.

--
DriveLuxe 51, 2017 VW Arteon w MIB3, nüvi 3597LTMHD x 2, 1450 died, 205w retired, iQue first and possibly the best

I've never used Spotify,

I've never used Spotify, can't speak to that. I had a free year of Sirius XM with the purchase of my Jeep in 2013. After the free year I did not renew.

Ever since I get monthly begs to rejoin and the price is always inviting but the catch is you have to stick with it for a certain time frame for a steep price. Every now and then I'll get a service done at my local Jeep dealer and I'll get another freebie, two months, after which they cut it off if I don't subscribe, so I activate it.

I'm currently enjoying one of those two month periods. Funny thing though, I didn't have a "service" it was a recall on the airbag system.

Anyway, in all I've had Sirius XM from a total of about two years and nothing has changed. The station I listen to 98% of the time, Bluesville, has a playlist, meaning you hear the same tunes at different times of the day during the week. Once in a while I'll hear a "new" tune but mostly it's the same old thing.

My Jeep has a user hard drive of 28GB, it's got a few thousand MP3's on it, add to that I can play music from a USB stick I don't need to pay for music any more. Over the years I have accumulated over 5000 tunes, I can listen for months and not hear the same tune twice.

Bottom line paying for radio when the only real time I listen is to and from work isn't for me, and without a deal, it's expensive.

.

--
. 2 Garmin DriveSmart 61 LMT-S, Nuvi 2689, 2 Nuvi 2460, Zumo 550, Zumo 450, Uniden R3 radar detector with GPS built in, includes RLC info. Uconnect 430N Garmin based, built into my Jeep. .

Don't know about Blend but had Sirus XM for 4 or 5 years

A few years ago. Their Rate creep is ridicules, you can play the "Will Disconnect" game with them but it gets old. Plus as mentioned before, Signal Quality was terrible, they "Fuzz it" to get "Info" which degrades sound quality. Not worth the money even after a great rate drop negotiation so finally quit and never regretted

Serius XM

Serius XM has a terrible customer relations reputation. Once they get your credit card number, they make it very difficult to discontinue service. Just Google "SeriusXM Customer Service Reviews" and see what pops up. Of course, like in all product ratings YMMV.

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Alan - Android Auto, DriveLuxe 51LMT-S, DriveLuxe 50LMTHD, Nuvi 3597LMTHD, Oregon 550T, Nuvi 855, Nuvi 755T, Lowrance Endura Sierra, Bosch Nyon

Right.

Exactyly right!

My wife signed up for the initial service when she first got the new car. Gave them her credit card number, even though the trial period was for 2-3 months. When she cancelled they kept billing her card for 5 months even though she called every month to complain. And she kept getting emails every couple of days to renew the service. Finally they stopped billing and refunded the amount.

This year when I got my new car I refused to give them or Onstar my credit card number and after the trial periods I just routed all the emails to spam.

I have all my songs, maybe about 2500, on a USB stick that is always plugged into the car so if I want to listen to music I have stuff I like. I will not do business with them or any other music thing I have to pay for.

I took all my old 33-1/3, CD's and converted them to digital MP3 and picked out the tracks I like to put on the USB.

--
I never get lost, but I do explore new territory every now and then.

Sirius Radio Is No More Than $5/month

dbusguy wrote:

I have Sirius XM and listen to ch16, The Blend. Only station I listen to, nothing else interests me. The Blend is an adult contemporary channel. Is anybody familiar with the Blend and what is offered on Spotify. I was told Spotify also has channels. Do they have a channel VERY similar to the Blend? My wife tried it once but said you had to make your own playlists.

For me, Spotify at $9.99 and month would be the same price but would allow me to listen anywhere. I have 6GB of data on my cell plan and don't even use 1GB so data is not a problem.

Any input on Spotify channels?

Thanks

I can't comment on that Spotify channel, however the standard going rate for Sirius Select is $5/month (plus a little bit for the RIAA fee and whatever sales tax your billing zip code has.) It was $4/month until 2018. Sirius Select includes just about all of the music and news channels, plus Howard Stern etc. It doesn't include many of the sports/premium channels.

If you let Sirius autopay or auto renew you will be charged more than that until you stop it.

To get the $5/month rate do one of the following:

A.) Call up and ask, or threaten to cancel and ask. Try 877-837-6647. They have a lot of phone numbers so you may find another one that works elsewhere on the Internet posted by people doing the same thing.

B.) Get off auto renewal! Then let your subscription run out. Soon you will be bombarded with emails and then letters in the mail offering $5/month (usually 6 months or 12 months at a time, paid at once. I.e. 6 months=$29.99, 12 months=$59.99). Turn off auto renewal a day or two after you do this so you don't forget in 6 months.

It's possible to do better than $5/month for Sirius, but it's becoming more rare. Occasionally they have free trials for expired radios (2-6 months) or $99 for 36 months ($2.75/month).

SeriusXM auto renewal

Item B can be difficult. Several years ago I called them and cancelled the service. They continued billing my credit card a couple of months and when the card expired they started sending invoices in the mail. I of course didn't pay, and they eventually turned it over to a collection agency. After several calls, they finally agreed that I had cancelled the service several months earlier and refunded the money they had charged to my credit card, but the collection agency kept trying to collect for a couple of years and Serius refused to help correct my credit record. Never again will I subscribe.

--
Alan - Android Auto, DriveLuxe 51LMT-S, DriveLuxe 50LMTHD, Nuvi 3597LMTHD, Oregon 550T, Nuvi 855, Nuvi 755T, Lowrance Endura Sierra, Bosch Nyon

Sirius XM

Satellite radio is better.

--
Val - Nuvi 785t and Streetpilot C340

AOL

KenSny wrote:

Exactyly right!

My wife signed up for the initial service when she first got the new car. Gave them her credit card number, even though the trial period was for 2-3 months. When she cancelled they kept billing her card for 5 months even though she called every month to complain. And she kept getting emails every couple of days to renew the service. Finally they stopped billing and refunded the amount.

~snip~

Sounds like the old AOL you can never leave deal.

When I had my free year of XM, and each free 2 months after a service, I never gave them a way to bill me, I never respond to any of the US or emails and a few days after the trail was supposed to be over Sirius disappeared as quickly as it appeared.

.

--
. 2 Garmin DriveSmart 61 LMT-S, Nuvi 2689, 2 Nuvi 2460, Zumo 550, Zumo 450, Uniden R3 radar detector with GPS built in, includes RLC info. Uconnect 430N Garmin based, built into my Jeep. .

And then there's Iheart

I heart is a world of it's own...

there are a bunch of news stations on it and there are tons of other kinds of genere's on there.. .

I sometimes use that... so you might try it..

If you want to listen specifically to FOX, CNN, MSNBC or others like that, you might consider getting streaming service...

but with iHeart it takes a while to hunt down stations on iHeart

--
Never argue with a pig. It makes you look foolish and it anoys the hell out of the pig!

using a credit card

alandb wrote:

Item B can be difficult. Several years ago I called them and cancelled the service. They continued billing my credit card a couple of months and when the card expired they started sending invoices in the mail. I of course didn't pay, and they eventually turned it over to a collection agency. After several calls, they finally agreed that I had cancelled the service several months earlier and refunded the money they had charged to my credit card, but the collection agency kept trying to collect for a couple of years and Serius refused to help correct my credit record. Never again will I subscribe.

Never give Sirius an unrestricted credit card for your sanity. Give them a virtual card number, offered by Bank of America, Citibank, Capital One etc.Set the expiration date and/ or limit to your choosing. If you can't do that give them a rebate or prepaid card. You can also pay with a normal credit card number if you immediately switch to something more restrictive after. (Change billing details online or on phone)

The only thing I like about

The only thing I like about Sirius is the integration with the car’s radio. Otherwise I like Spotify more.

Get both

Otherwise at least get SiriusXM because I’m a shareholder. Thanks.

--
non-native nutmegger

I think

Think we talked about this before, on one car we pay $29.94 for 6 mos and it winds up $36 with taxes and royalties.

But on the other car I used the name your price tool. I said that I only want to pay $20 including taxes and royalties for 5 mos. So they made it $20 out the door.

At any time if these prices stop or go up, we'll cancel altogether. But it's been almost 8 years now. In reality it's not even worth $4/mo., let's be realistic. Just that it's not a huge amount.

Found my answer

It's been 2 weeks but I found my answer. There aren't channels but there are playlists and for a playlist of what's on Sirius XM, you have to look at xmplaylist.com

It looks like it's updated once a month to what is being played on Sirius XM.

So I have cancelled my Sirius XM and now have Spotify. I can now listen on my phone and stream it through my car. I have downloaded the playlists I want to listen to so I'm not using up my data while driving. All this for $9.99. So far I'm liking this.

I'm

schmidwr wrote:

Otherwise at least get SiriusXM because I’m a shareholder. Thanks.

a shareholder of Qualcomm but I don't tell people to get 5G lol also CSX being a monopoly it doesn't matter what anyone does (CSX is laughable it multiplied 10X since 2009 outperforming most of the latest coolest stocks)

SXM

dbusguy, I'm glad you settled it and are happy with Spotify.

But for people reading this thread later, I disagree with some of the advice here.

1. You don't have to "play hardball" with SiriusXM in the sense of being nasty to customer service reps to really cancel or get a better rate on a renewal. But the regular customer service reps aren't allowed to offer you better deals on renewals. You have to talk to a "retention rep," whom you only get to talk to when you use the magic word "cancel." Your call is transferred to someone who can offer better prices or process a real cancellation.

2. You can't "opt out of autorenewal" unless you cancel--just not possible the way their contract and system works. Autorenewal at regular prices (which are expensive) is part of the deal--unless you call them and make a different arrangement.

3. But canceling or getting a better deal from a retention rep is not hard. You are very unlikely to have a problem canceling and being charged anyway if you cancel the right way. This *was* more of a problem at SXM up until about three to five years ago, but they've cut out the scams. I read the recent reviews at alandb's link and see some people are saying it was still a problem for them, but that's out of millions of subscribers and even more radios. I hang out on a different message board (xmfan.com) and complaints about this there have dropped off to almost nothing in recent years. I and others there have canceled various vehicles and radios in recent years with no issue being charged or renewed anyway. So I wouldn't let reports of problems about canceling dissuade someone from subscribing.

When you get a free intro with a vehicle purchase, you don't have to cancel. If you don't initiate a paid subscription, it shuts off, except for about four weeks over the course of each year when a lot of channels are free anyway. If you do subscribe, they'll start you at a low rate. The day or two before that would autorenew at full price--they'll tell you when that is, or you can see it on your online account-- call them. A machine asks what your call is about. Just say: "cancel my service." You will be transferred to an English-speaking American, usually within seconds. No need for hardball because these reps are nice and efficient. Tell the retention rep: "I like SiriusXM, but I'm not willing to pay full price."

The retention rep will immediately start rolling out offers. Find the best one for you, depending on length of the contract, price, and included channels. Rinse and repeat at each point they'd autorenew you at full price, usually every six months or year. It does take five to ten minutes for them to process your deal in their system once you've agreed on a deal, which is annoying, but the sizable discount (it can be a hundred bucks a year, depending) makes this dance worth doing. Again you will NOT be offered a good discount unless you say "cancel my service." I know, it's a stupid game to have to play, but it's how they do it.

Now say you aren't looking for a deal, but really want to cancel. No problem. Call and again say to the robot, "cancel my service." This time tell the retention rep you aren't looking for a deal but really just want to cancel. They may try a time or two to talk you out of it, but it's not hard sell, and they do take "no" for an answer. They will process your cancellation--which is an immediate shutoff of your service, and you may get a small refund--give you a confirmation number, and send you an email. Save the confirmation number and the email. Check your credit card bill. In the very unlikely event there's a discrepancy like they charged your credit card for a renewal anyway, call them back, ask for "billing," give them the confirmation number and expect a full refund.

--
"141 could draw faster than he, but Irving was looking for 143..."

@Lost Anyway

Thanks for the informative post. It is good to hear that Serius XM has improved their practices in the past 3 years. My bad experience with Serius XM does go back several years … about 9 or 10 years ago I think. My newest vehicle that came with Serius XM is a 2017 model, but I did not subscribe to the service because of the bad experience I had with the previous vehicle which was a 2008.

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Alan - Android Auto, DriveLuxe 51LMT-S, DriveLuxe 50LMTHD, Nuvi 3597LMTHD, Oregon 550T, Nuvi 855, Nuvi 755T, Lowrance Endura Sierra, Bosch Nyon

Sirius XM

I prefer Sirius XM, because I like the options for talk radio, news and live sports.

@alandb

I know they really did used to do what you're talking about (ignoring a cancellation and charging your credit card) back when you canceled. There were many, many more complaints about that years ago. SiriusXM was owned by different people then, and it seems that at that time, agents got rewarded by not really canceling customers who wanted to cancel.

One big difference now is that a key part of every call to a retention rep is recorded, and the recording is kept. They are careful to explain that and go through in detail the terms and get the customer's spoken agreement on the recording several times to key parts of the agreed-on order, whether canceling, changing your plan, or renewing your plan at a different price, and the recording has the confirmation number. If a customer complains: "Hey you billed me, but that's not what I agreed to," and has a confirmation number, a supervisor can check the tape. I don't think they'd reward or keep a cheating retention rep around.

Yeah I know the possibly-urban-legend stories about companies editing these tapes so that when you say "yes" to an agent's request for you to, say, confirm your email address, they splice your "yes" answer in to a high-priced renewal question, but no, we're not hearing any complaints about that with SXM.

It's an annoying game--if they were being completely fair about it, they wouldn't autorenew or at least would allow online opt-out of autorenewal, wouldn't make you call and use the magic word "cancel" to get a better deal, and would allow online cancellation--none of which they do--but they are operating within their terms of service and operating cleaner than they did back when they scammed you, and it is possible to have a good customer service experience with them.

--
"141 could draw faster than he, but Irving was looking for 143..."

Sirius XM was actually good to me

I am Canadian but I found the best deal with the US Sirius XM. After a couple of renewals and offers from them I realized that I was only listening to 1 station. Ch 16, The Blend. After talking with an agent one night she offered me BASIC service. It's only about 50 channels and was $8.95 at the time. Was month to month, no contract. I've had this for about 3 1/2 years now.Right now with the US exchange, and an increase a year ago, it'snow costing about $11-12. Also I live on a mountain and have little service in certain areas due to tall building. So my son was telling me about Spotify. This is why I was looking into it. Now for $9.99 Cdn I can still have the same music content of The Blend. I can be driving and not having music cut out due to signal loss. I download the music to my phone and listen offline so not using up my data. This is a win, win, win. Don't get me wrong, I loved Sirius XM. The were good to me and offer exactly what I wanted. I was able to cancel online chat and didn't have to talk to anybody and there was no pressure or offers to stay. I am happy all around.