Well.... I see Mini endorses Sirius and for about $410 you can get the equipment and install it....

I also see Blitzsafe has the XM units for about $140...... due to rebates...

both installs seem to be straight forward...

What I don't like is..the XM unit uses a seperate antenna with a ugly cord that has to be run, but the sirius unit used the oem antenna mount. Please correct me if I am wrong...

Also, on the H/K system... does the Sirius/XM have the sound quality of standard radio stations or the awesome quality of CDs/MP3s???

 

You are pretty much right on. I know at least one guy gutted teh MINI antenna base and installed his XM antenna there. I just placed mine right behind the standard on my 2004. It really does not look bad at all.

THe sound quality is not really CD level, but is closer to that than FM by a mile. They use different Codecs than MP3, but most of the music sounds about like a 128 kbps MP3 to me, which is pretty good in a car. The talk channels are much lower quality since they are not music.

 

I was at my dealer (Schomp in Denver)yesterday and saw that they are selling both systems.

 

well.. come to find out..XM doesn't support Hawaii and there is no gaurentee that the xm service reaches out here by them....

Sirius said they do support Hawaii and there should be no problem....

Called Mini Hawaii and they said they don't install it due to no sirius service out here...

Currently I have emails into both xm & sirius for a hard answer.... If Sirius says yes via email... then I will prob get the stuff from Classic Mini and try that route early next year...

 

Hahah.
Go to siriusbackstage.com and ask or search in the forum, so you'll hear from real people if the service is OK in hawaii. Don't rely on the companies to give their politically correct responses.

Yes, your choices are a $600 fully integrated OEM sirius receiver from the dealer, $150 + install for the blitzsafe XM, or $50 for a 3rd gen sirius plug & play unit, which blows away the OEM unit in features in sound quality (unfortunately for me).

 

How difficult is it to install the Blitzsafe XM radio tuner behind a HK system? I've been tossing the XM vs. Sirius thing for a while, and for now, I'm leaning towards XM, since there's the Blitzsafe integration with the stock radio. I'm just a bit unhappy with the fact you have a corded antenna.

I'm rather fond of the stock look.

 

Does the standard antenna base run Sirius as well? I've been looking at getting Sirius (I prefer their station line up) for my Mini, using a 2005 Pioneer head unit. I know Pioneer has a tuner box that connects to the HU, but I wasn't sure if I could use any form of stock wiring for the antenna or if the supplied aftermarket one needed to be used.

 

I may be missing something, but the XM Blitzsafe adapter connects to the CD changer cable which is in the right side of the boot - not behind the stereo. I installed mine back there but between it, the XM tuner box and the h/k amp, it was a really tight fit.

As for the "stock" look, the only difference you can see between a stock system and my XM/Blitzsafe system is that I have the "Oreo" antenna puck right behind my AM/FM/GPS antenna.

No visible wires, no additional control pods. Just press the "Mode" button on the headunit until "Sirius" is displayed which is followed quickly by "XM Radio" and then voila - XM!

 

Yeah, that's the area I was talking about. I was replacing my taillights and found the HK amp in the way which made things a bit more difficult. Do you happen to have a picture of what the setup looks like?

 

I could take a picture but it really wouldn't reveal much because everything is just stuffed in there really good.

Suffice to say that there were some pliers and some serious stuffing.

Sound quality is as good as any other XM setup, though. Better than FM, worse than a really good CD, better than cassette.

 

Hmm. Very intriguing. How do you like the XM channel lineup?

 

Do they sell Sirius PnP units at Radio Shack out there? If so, you can buy one to test the reception. Don't activate it, just see if you get the Sirius preview channel. You don't even need to install the antenna. Just put it on your dash and drive around. If you like it, then just return it and buy whatever hardware you want.

Wonder if you get any reception in Manoa!

 

Love it! I listen mostly to the 80's, The Mix, The Blend, The Loft, Cafe, Chrome, Top Tracks, Fred, Lucy and BPM, with a bit of the XLComedy when I'm in the mood for some bawdy humor :-) I can always find something I like.

 

Sirius does not work in Hawaii.

 

It fits in there if you finagle it a little. I did not like the fact that it might be bouncing aoround back there though so I ended up taking my side panel off so I could mount the XM direct box securely. I mounted it on teh back of the rear seat bracket but did not take pictures as I had no digital camera then.

 

I have a plug-n-play sirius unit from JVC. It was super easy to install it using the simple $40 aux input and an aftermarket mounting bracket that locates it to the right of the center console. Exterior antenna is tiny and routing the wires from the back of the car to the front was also very easy.

I love my setup, especially since I received the unit as a gift and my total cost was about $60 for everything. . . .