Sirius Portable Receivers

I've got the Starmate. I'm enjoying it. It even fits in the CD tray below the radio head unit. See my installation here. Others have gone with other Sirius units. A "Sirius" search should bring up a lot.

 

I've had the Starmate Replay for about 10 months now, and it's been a great radio. However, if you will be moving the radio between car and semi, then you may want to consider the Sportster. With the Starmate, you must unplug the wires from the unit to remove it. With the Sportster, you pull the unit out of its dock (wires attached to the dock, not the radio). In either case, you would need a second car-dock kit.

The Starmate is smaller than the Sportster. Sirius makes a boombox for each model, if you want that portability, too.

Unfortunately, I had bad experiences with the S50 (the reason I switched to the Starmate). The radio is a great design, and I loved the ability to store favorite songs on the internal flash-drive, along with my own MP3s. But I gave up on it after two of them crapped-out on me. I think Sirius rushed the S50 to market too fast, and too many users (like me) had technical problems. However, that may be fixed, now that the S50 is about a year old. The Stilleto looks similar to the S50, but I haven't researched it -- I'm happy with the Starmate.

With any portable PnP, you won't get the same audio quality as your integrated Clarion, especially if you use the wireless FM. The AUX input will give you better sound quality than the FM transmitter, but not as good as an integrated head-unit.

Hope this helps!!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Hopeful Future Prius Owner @ Oct 15 2006, 09:16 PM) [snapback]333218[/snapback]</div>

Yes, the Starmate has outputs. Check out the manual here. The manual should take care of the need for pictures. If it doesn't, I can go take some.

The Starmate does require an antenna. It comes with a magnetic roof-mounted one. It might be the same as the one for the Clarion unit. But you can hide it under a sharkfin or in the spoiler.

I think the dash/vent mounting would work for the Starmate too. I don't see why it wouldn't.

 

Ditto Skwyre7.

I use the audio-out with a tape-deck adapter, since my '05 didn't come with the AUX-in.

The Starmate kit comes with everything you need to install the unit in a vehicle with an FM radio. AUX cables, tape adapters, etc, are not included.

It comes with a suction-cup windshield mount and an air-vent bracket. BTW, the other day at Best Buy, I noticed a cup-holder mount that would probably fit nicely in the Prius's fold-down cup-holder.

The package also includes an antenna, but the one you got with the Clarion unit is likely compatable. I'm using the micro-dot antenna that came with that S50 I mentioned before.

 

I have th Exact unit cost $49

I just purchased the Sirus-One unit (for my dad) it's the size of a radar detector Works great and will fit anywere...

 

I've seen the Xact and Sirius-One, but haven't looked at the specs on them. (The Sirius-One is a cool-looking little radio.) And there are other models out there, too. The less-expensive ones have basic features like artist/title display, which is fine for many listeners.

Personally, I'm hooked on the artist-alert feature of the Starmate/Sportster models (also game-alert for sports fans). The artist-alert has directed me to channels I never would have heard otherwise. For example, I have Foo Fighters as one of my favorites, and artist-alert took me to the Boombox channel (34) where they played a really cool remix of "Everlong." So I started listening to that channel for more of those unusual remixes.

Also, having the ability to pause/rewind fits with my working environment rather nicely.

So while I'm a fan of my Starmate Replay, I realize that not everyone will care about its features. It's nice to have choices, isn't it? B)

I just looked at some of the Stiletto features. Sirius has finally put out a live-portable unit, meaning you can listen to live content while the unit is not docked -- for example, while you are jogging. It's about time, too. XM produced a live-portable over a year ago. However, since I had such a bad experience with the S50, I'm skeptical. I would urge anyone who wants one to wait until the bugs are worked out.

 

You might check on the Sirius web site. Since you are a current Sirius subscriber, you may be eligible for a free radio. I ordered the Sirus-One unit for free. I just had to commit to a six month subscription (which is half the price of a regular monthly subscription). ONce I hooked-up the radio, I received static. I looked on this chat line and found some helpful hints on fixing this problem. I ended up calling Sirius and complained about the static and they sent me a FM Modulator cable for free (cost $19.95). I had to still undo the dash to insert the radio cable. I posted a web site for the dash removal on "Sirius Static" web page. Look on page 2, toward the bottom. My Sirius One unit now plays fine and I got everything for free, just having to pay about $48.00 for the six month subscription...

 

I also went with the wired FM modulator cable. I wasn't having any problems with static around here, but when I went up to DC it was terrible. Unlike Shad, I didn't contact Sirius, so I had to pay for my cable. But now I've got great sound and no static!

 

The suction cup that came with the Starmate held nicely for over a year. ThenI moved it to the CD tray, where it will stay - it likes the shade. B)

I'm pretty sure the Sportster suction cup would hold just as well. Good luck.