Hi guys,
Here are some pics of my XM SkyFi unit installed. Many thanks to my installer, Nate. Also, thanks to (i) Cryptnotic for the original post and instructions re: "AUX-in via tape" mod; (ii) Session for the instructions on radio removal.

The sound, of course, is great. The install is flawless. Satellite radio rules.
More pics and a full review later.
Martin-

 

Pic 2 - with ashtray compartment closed

 

Pic 3 - With Remote

 

Pic 4 - "fake display"

 

Pic 5 - Close-up

 

Wow. I've been looking for a clean install of this XM system. A couple of questions:

1. Can you explain the display screens: you call one "fake" display, but your first picture seems to display the XM radio station.

2. Have you lost all tape function?

3. Where have yuo placed the XM antenna? How is the reception?

4. I assume you're able to take the receiver out of the ashtray for, e.g., home use?

5. Did you do the install yourself? If so, how hard was it? (I'm half-electrically-inclined, e.g., hard-wired the radar and have done basic wiring/soldering in the past, but have no car stereo experience.)

6. What, if any, steering wheel control do you get? I assume all channel changes are done through the unit/remote. Out of curiosity, does the remote require line of sight or would it work from back seat or right side of passenger cabin pretty easily?

Looks great. Thanks in advance for the info.

 

I thought about this to because I have the Audiovox Shuttle (the Sirius look alike for the Delphi). The problem is that it's difficult to get it in and out and he obviously took the cradle apart to make it happen. What I like about the Shuttle is that it's FM wireless and sounds much better than any FM mod I've heard, almost as good as a hard wired unit. The problem has been where to mount it on the coupe. On my S-10 it's easy but on the MB I'm still scratching my head and no, I don't want to put it in the ashtray even though it fits. I want easy in/out so I can move it to my truck that I drive a few times a week.

As for XM vs. Sirius, no comparison. XM has commercials on the good channels, Sirius has better playlists on most of the streams and Sirius has NPR which I wanted for Car Talk. Also the Shuttle sounds better than the Delphi. If you pay annually the cost difference is 6 cents a day, worth it for no commercials. I say this from experience, I have both the Delphi and the Shuttle although the Shuttle is new.

 

Thanks for the compliment.

1. I call the display "fake" because it has nothing to do with the XM unit. Rather, I generated the display with my integrated Motorola cellphone. In other words, I just typed "XM FRED 44" and displayed it on the screen, much like any of the other names in my phone book directory.

2. Yes. In order to do this "aux-in via tape mod," you have to clip the wires powering the cassette motors. Therefore, you lose the tape playing capabilities. Like most people out there, I don't have any use for the cassette player, so losing the tape playing function was not even an issue.

3.The antenna is placed on the rear shelf, against the rear windshield. I will post a pic later. As to the reception, nothing beats the antenna being on the outside of the vehicle. (I have satellite radio on my wife's car, and the reception is flawless as the antenna is located on the roof of the car). I am willing to put up with the limitations of having the antenna inside inasmuch as I hate all current antenna designs. The only antenna whose look I like is the GM factory antenna which, incidentally, would be compatible with most XM units, including the Skyfi. (See attached pic). However, it requires a major sacrifice, namely, drilling a hole on your roof. We'll see.

4. Yes, I could take the unit out of the
ashtray compartment if I wanted to. However, I don't listen to satellite radio in my house so it's not an issue. In this case, the unit is nicely secured with double tape.

5. No. I could not have done this by myself. Particularly the part about modifying the factory Head Unit to get the "Aux-in" through the tape player circuit board. My buddy, Nate, did the Head Unit modification and the install. He works as a part-time installer for BestBuy here in Connecticut. He's a pretty talented kid, with a great deal of attention to detail and pride in his work. Even with directions and pics, the removal of the radio and the aux-in mod took us a few hours. We did the actual ashtray install 2 days ago (approximately 3 weeks after we did the original aux-in mod). The ashtray install took him about 3 hours. For obvious reasons, I am static about the results.


6-Other than volume (and toggling between all other menu functions), the steering wheel does not control any of the SkyFi functions. I control those through the nice little remote or manually on the unit itself. The remote is indeed line of sight, and works like a charm. In my case, I have all my 10 favorite stations as presets 1 through 10 on direct entry, so all I have to do is press the corresponding number on the remote keypad. My hand already recognizes the keypad layout so you don't even have to look down to view the display. I also love the fact that the display is angled a bit for perfect viewing, and that you can close the ashtray compartment and no one has any idea that there is a Skyfi inside!

Let me know if you have any other questions.
Martin-

 

Anpther pic of my favorite XM antenna design.

 

pic of the GM factory XM antenna

 

Not a bad antenna, looks just like the SOS antenna, just slightly stubbier. I'd go for a new head unit, personally, but that's a really clean install, congrats.

 

Got my Audiovox Shuttle in my S10 first. I'm still deciding on where to put it in the MB. Here's a pic. I got an A23 Simpson angle from Home Depot for 50 cents and the screw holes lined up and I used an existing screw under the dash. Don't think I'll be as lucky in the coupe. I'm so much happier with the programming on Sirius vs. my XM units, don't know what made me pick XM in the first place.

 

Hey, Buell, are those the infamous jeans in the picture that caused you such a problem with that snooty MB sales jerk??? :p

Jim,

Nice install! How does the sound compare to regular FM stations? Are you boosting anything with an amp, or just the standard HU?

Tim

 

That was the snooty Lexus sales jerk. MB was cool about it, maybe it's selling all those CL's to drug dealers and they thought I was one of them. Fooled them though, bought the cheapest thing they had.

 

LOL

 

Thanks.

Yes, because it is a direct connection, the quality of the sound is far superior than analog (regular) FM. However, it is not as rich of a sound as you'd get from my CD changer. I'd say my XM sounds like digital FM.

Since I wanted to preserve the factory look, keeping the MB HU was a must. As we all know, the factory HU is, well, somewhat ****ty.:o Therefore, the sonic quality of the XM is limited by the shortcomings of the factory HU.

Overall, I'm very happy about the install. Naturally, I'd love to have a MB factory XM Head Unit but that's not going to happen.

As to XM versus Sirius, IMO they are both very good services and it boils down to individual, subjective preferences. I have Sirius in the wife's car and it just fine for her. I like XM because it has some channels with musical genres that were not available in Sirius. (i.e., "Vibra" rock in spanish). As to the issue of commercials, most of my favorite 10 XM channels don't even have them. And those channels that have commercials, only play them occasionally and in limited number and duration. As I said, it's a matter of personal opinion.

 

For when I had XM with the FM modulator, I would say on a good channel (channel quality varies a lot on XM from station to station) it sounded like FM on a stock factory radio but nowhere as good as FM on the Audio 10. I thought about modifying the cassette radio for aux-in but I figured all that would do is make FM sound like my XM already does. What was lacking was bass, it sounded flat and no matter how much bass I gave it, it didn't sound as good as FM on the Audio 10. The Shuttle has tons of bass, so much so that I had to turn it down or it was too booming. It lacks treble but there's plenty of adjustability on the Audio 10 to make up for it, just have to make a minor adjustment when playing FM stations. I would imagine that the Shuttle may add some much needed bass to the cassette radio but I don't have one to try that out on. But that's just comparing Delphi to it's look alike Audiovox Shuttle.

As for what's better XM or Sirius, that depends on if you like the playlists. For example I like 90's and current pop music they play on Sirius's Pulse (channel 2) because they don't play hip-hop/rap (no Eminem, 50 Cent, Snoop Dog), those are broken down in to a seperate catagory. On the other hand, the equivalent station on XM like MIX (channel 22) and 90's (channel 9) play a lot of hip-hop, probably because they don't have a specific catagory for hip-hop. The same was true in the Rock catagory, Sirius plays traditional playlists that you may be used to on FM and XM was playing a lot of stuff I've never heard of and didn't like. So to me I find that on XM I hunt a lot for the right song, while on Sirius I can leave it on the Pulse or the Bridge for a while before I get bored with it and switch catagories. Unfortunately on top of not having the type of music I enjoy, the commercials on my 2 favorite XM channels, MIX and Comedy where getting bad, many times with 4 straight minutes of commercials right in the middle of my 20 minute commute, for that I have free FM. At this time my daughter is staying with XM and her Delphi because she likes the 90's channel and the hip hop they play but she'll listen to Sirius on campus through their online streams.

 

Check out this new Delphi that's coming out soon, 40% smaller and no cradle required so it will fit in the ashtray without any modification like the Delphi cradle. Stick it in the ashtray with velcro and you are done, easy to move from car to car. Also you can change the color of the display to 7 different colors to match the MB lighting and you can change the faceplates (learning from Nokia). Also look at the antenna, way smaller than before and only 1 wire. I like Sirius programming better but this may be worth checking out.

http://www.xmradio.com/roady/popup/complete.htm

 

Very cool, Buell. I'm wondering if you can hardwire the power instead of using the cig lighter. What do you think?

Tim

 

The Skyfi uses 6 volts. I will assume Roady will use the same. I also assume Roady will be for the car only, no home kit.

Buell is partly right about XM programming. I've been a little dissapointed that I can't stick with one station or sometimes can't find any songs I like on 100 channels. I got XM because I'm tired of hearing the same 10 songs repeated on FM. But sometimes I'm in the mood to hear something that I recognise. XM programming has been described as "eclectic". I really only visit less than 10 channels regularly which is a shame, I was hoping that I'd enjoy more. I like XM more in the house, used as background music for any occasion. When I want to concentrate on music (usually in the car or at work) I find that I have to pop in a CD.

The commercials that I have heard are few and far between. Nothing nearly as bad as FM commercials and never 4 minutes long.

 

The easy way to hardwire the power would be to buy cig lighter adapter at Radio Shack and hard wire that with an inline fuse under the dash and then plug the roady power cord into that. This way it will convert the 12 to 6V and you can still remove it and move it to another car if you want.

As far as commercials, they are only on some stations like Mix or Comedy and are mostly during commute times so at 3 in the afternoon there my be no commercials but 5-6 PM there may be 4 minutes/hr. I'm at a quandy because I like Sirius way better than XM for programming but I'm not crazy about the shuttle because it's sooo big and the FM wireless, although it sounds good, when you drive into an area with a station on that frequency you have either hunt for a new unused frequency or put up with static and crossover. I haven't decided what to do but the Roady looks sweet and will fit perfectly in the ash tray and still be movable to my truck and be half the price since I already pay for XM in my kids car so it's $6.99/mo. You may be right though, use the CD changer for the music you want and then switch to XM for background music on long trips and comedy.,

 

Hey, just curious, is it viable to have the antenna located inside the car? I'd like to place it under the rear "wing" of the hatch, off to one side, I think that'd be the best place for it. I'm not particularly into placing an antenna on top of the car, especially since the SOS antenna is there too.

 

Place the antenna on the cargo compartment cover under the center of the hatch glass.

 

As far as antenna placement, nothing beats the great outdoors. I had an XM receiver with the antenna in the hatch area and it works most of time but you will get drop outs, for me, during my 12 mile freeway commute I would get about 3-4 dropouts, on the otherhand, in my daughter's car, I can drive the same exact dropout spots and never lose a second. Her antenna is on the trunk lid (convertible, can't put it on the roof). On Sirius it's worse unless you put it outside. Luckily antenna sizes have be dropping and the new antennas for both services are less than half what they used to be.

 

Antenna Placement

I agree with Buellwinkle, I have the antenna inside the car and currently get drop outs I know I would not be getting it it the antenna were outside.

Therefore, I am seriously considering installing a permanent antenna on the roof.

As I said above, the GM antenna is cool but requires drilling. However, the new generation XM antennae (such as the one from the new XM "Roady" unit seems promising in terms of size and aerodynamic looks.

Martin-