Audiovox XMCK30 Satellite Radio Receiver
- Usage: Car
- Service: XM
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Great Radio for Music lovers!
Pros
Variety, Quick functions easy to perform, cheap subscription, clear display, clear signal
Cons
Customer service, menu hard to navigate while driving, unused display space, some features seem useless
Recommended it?
Yes
The Bottom Line:
If you are a music lover like me it is worth it!
I used to have the "starter" radio from XM and decided to upgrade to this radio, and it was an excellent choice. I love music, and when I drive I must have music on, of any genra.
Setup:
If you do not have an XM/Sirrius (this radio will receive both signals) account, you need to follow the instructions on their web site (I Subscribe to XM radio) to sign up, you will need a radio to assign the service to. After that, this radio is relativly easy to hook up. All the radios come with a power cable (with car adapter for cigarrete lighters in cars) and an antenna cable (Generously long cable). To setup the radio you have your choice (as with most of these radios) of going direct if you car radio has an AUX in (refer to your car radio instructions to find that out. If it does, it will look like a headphone jack usually.) or you can hook it up via AM radio band. The AM radio band is pretty bad quality, you have to fine tune your radio and even then, there is a lot of static. I use the AUX in mode, and that is crystal clear, as there is no signal loss or lag or interferance. If you do not have an AUX in, you will want to look into a radio with it, as I stated the AM band is pretty bad. It also has a dashboard mount (sticky) and a vent mount (clips).
Service:
I can not vouch for sirrius radio service, but XM radio service is decent. I get a clear signal 98% of the time, and when it cuts out it just goes quiet for a moment or two and I regain signal. Most car trips I dont get a loss of signal and when I do, its for literally a second or two. The customer support is somewhat lacking, luckily you will not have to deal with them often. I upgraded my radio and to do that you need to cancel your old subscription and start a new one. When I cancelled the old subscription, XM would call me three times a day asking if I wanted half price on the service. It took nearly a week for them to stop after I told them I have no use for two radios in one car.
Display:
The radio display is much better than the starter radio and is clear. One problem I did have was glare, the display is bright and would reflect off my windshield pretty bad. You can lower the display light but at its lowest settings, I can not read the radio too well. The radio displays 2 lines of text, somewhat bothering because the rest of the screen (easily fitting 4 lines) is empty, with a picture on the background that represents the station you are listening to (like Octane, my favorite station, has a guy playing a guitar as a background). If the Artist/Song name is too long, it will still scroll periodically to show you the entire name (though not frequent enough). The time is also very small and can not be adjusted, so use your car radio for that.
Functionality:
The menues are somewhat easy to navigate. It involved pushing the turn wheen in to activate menues, turning the wheel to make selections (kind of odd, there are two arrow keys there) and pushing the wheel again to make selections. So make sure to have your settings correct before you drive as operating the menu while driving will cause an accident! Luckily, most of the menu stuff you should not have to access frequently and all the features are shortcutted nicely. There are also 10 number buttoms (1-9 and 0) and a fav button along the bottom. Very easy to use to navigate. The radio has three modes, direct (dial a station using the numbers, for example 192) favorites (when you are dialed into a station you like, hold a button and it is assigned, you then use that button later to dial in to that station) and Favorites (discussed in features). You would use the FAV button on the right of 0 to scroll through the three (hitting the button each time will go to the next mode)
Features:
Song saver is excellent and the main reason why I purchased this radio. you can record any song that you hear on the radio to a number button (up to ten songs), if you record song 11 it will record over 1, song 12 over 2 and so on (you have no control over that). To record a song, you hold down the center wheel button until you hear a beep, then tap the button again to select save song. You have about a 5 second window to get an entire song. So if you hear a song and you scream "I love this song!" get on that button, but if you come half way through a song, it will only record what is playing until the end of the song. At the end of the song, it will automatically stop recording. There is also the song finder. If you are on a song you like and want your radio to tell you when it plays in the future on any station, hold the center button, scroll to the option, and select it. It works fine but I do not use this feature. It will stop the music you are on, tell you this other song is playing, and stay quiet for 5 or so seconds which to me is annoying. Also, the chances that the song is playing on another station are pretty slim unless you travel for a job then it might be handy.
Song Variety:
here is where XM/Sirrius scream over the competition, for a low price (ten bucks a month for me) you have commerical free radio. I got sick of listening to more DJ's talking about their day than music and also hearing the same music over and over that I caved in. Most people will not "pay for radio" but for music lovers, its worth it. It is indeed commerical free. Every so often they play the station call sign ("you are listening to station X, Xm25") very short. Some stations are talk stations as well, so if you enjoy talk, get it all the time! As far as Genras are concerned, XM's basic package has it all. I have easy listening, classical, Rock and rap all on my radio at the touch of a button, almost guarenteed to get a song and not a DJ!
I got this radio for 99 dollars and to me its worth every penny. To have commerical free radio on my way to and from work and friends houses and on long road trips, I am willing to pay 100 bucks plus ten a month. This radio is also universal to all docks that accept XM radios. I am actually using my old doc from my first radio to play this. So any desktop player/old cradle should fit this radio no problem.
Setup:
If you do not have an XM/Sirrius (this radio will receive both signals) account, you need to follow the instructions on their web site (I Subscribe to XM radio) to sign up, you will need a radio to assign the service to. After that, this radio is relativly easy to hook up. All the radios come with a power cable (with car adapter for cigarrete lighters in cars) and an antenna cable (Generously long cable). To setup the radio you have your choice (as with most of these radios) of going direct if you car radio has an AUX in (refer to your car radio instructions to find that out. If it does, it will look like a headphone jack usually.) or you can hook it up via AM radio band. The AM radio band is pretty bad quality, you have to fine tune your radio and even then, there is a lot of static. I use the AUX in mode, and that is crystal clear, as there is no signal loss or lag or interferance. If you do not have an AUX in, you will want to look into a radio with it, as I stated the AM band is pretty bad. It also has a dashboard mount (sticky) and a vent mount (clips).
Service:
I can not vouch for sirrius radio service, but XM radio service is decent. I get a clear signal 98% of the time, and when it cuts out it just goes quiet for a moment or two and I regain signal. Most car trips I dont get a loss of signal and when I do, its for literally a second or two. The customer support is somewhat lacking, luckily you will not have to deal with them often. I upgraded my radio and to do that you need to cancel your old subscription and start a new one. When I cancelled the old subscription, XM would call me three times a day asking if I wanted half price on the service. It took nearly a week for them to stop after I told them I have no use for two radios in one car.
Display:
The radio display is much better than the starter radio and is clear. One problem I did have was glare, the display is bright and would reflect off my windshield pretty bad. You can lower the display light but at its lowest settings, I can not read the radio too well. The radio displays 2 lines of text, somewhat bothering because the rest of the screen (easily fitting 4 lines) is empty, with a picture on the background that represents the station you are listening to (like Octane, my favorite station, has a guy playing a guitar as a background). If the Artist/Song name is too long, it will still scroll periodically to show you the entire name (though not frequent enough). The time is also very small and can not be adjusted, so use your car radio for that.
Functionality:
The menues are somewhat easy to navigate. It involved pushing the turn wheen in to activate menues, turning the wheel to make selections (kind of odd, there are two arrow keys there) and pushing the wheel again to make selections. So make sure to have your settings correct before you drive as operating the menu while driving will cause an accident! Luckily, most of the menu stuff you should not have to access frequently and all the features are shortcutted nicely. There are also 10 number buttoms (1-9 and 0) and a fav button along the bottom. Very easy to use to navigate. The radio has three modes, direct (dial a station using the numbers, for example 192) favorites (when you are dialed into a station you like, hold a button and it is assigned, you then use that button later to dial in to that station) and Favorites (discussed in features). You would use the FAV button on the right of 0 to scroll through the three (hitting the button each time will go to the next mode)
Features:
Song saver is excellent and the main reason why I purchased this radio. you can record any song that you hear on the radio to a number button (up to ten songs), if you record song 11 it will record over 1, song 12 over 2 and so on (you have no control over that). To record a song, you hold down the center wheel button until you hear a beep, then tap the button again to select save song. You have about a 5 second window to get an entire song. So if you hear a song and you scream "I love this song!" get on that button, but if you come half way through a song, it will only record what is playing until the end of the song. At the end of the song, it will automatically stop recording. There is also the song finder. If you are on a song you like and want your radio to tell you when it plays in the future on any station, hold the center button, scroll to the option, and select it. It works fine but I do not use this feature. It will stop the music you are on, tell you this other song is playing, and stay quiet for 5 or so seconds which to me is annoying. Also, the chances that the song is playing on another station are pretty slim unless you travel for a job then it might be handy.
Song Variety:
here is where XM/Sirrius scream over the competition, for a low price (ten bucks a month for me) you have commerical free radio. I got sick of listening to more DJ's talking about their day than music and also hearing the same music over and over that I caved in. Most people will not "pay for radio" but for music lovers, its worth it. It is indeed commerical free. Every so often they play the station call sign ("you are listening to station X, Xm25") very short. Some stations are talk stations as well, so if you enjoy talk, get it all the time! As far as Genras are concerned, XM's basic package has it all. I have easy listening, classical, Rock and rap all on my radio at the touch of a button, almost guarenteed to get a song and not a DJ!
I got this radio for 99 dollars and to me its worth every penny. To have commerical free radio on my way to and from work and friends houses and on long road trips, I am willing to pay 100 bucks plus ten a month. This radio is also universal to all docks that accept XM radios. I am actually using my old doc from my first radio to play this. So any desktop player/old cradle should fit this radio no problem.
