First impression of XM: not impressed

For those who haven't heard of XM, it's one of the 2 satellite radio providers in US (the other is Sirius) I have been very enthusiastic about such service ever since they emerge few years ago. Why? As you know, I'm a music junkie, who wants to listen to good music any time any where. If satellite radio is anything like satellite TV, it is going to provide far superior programming than its "free-over-the-air" counterpart. And it's going to catch on like a fire (or should I say, like WWW?)

Apparently I was wrong. I don't know of any of my friends interested in sat radio (let alone subscribed) Spending ~$100 on equipments and calling them for subscription is just too much trouble for me to try out the service. Finally, XM is going online and offering 3-day free trial. I can't wait to experience satellite radio for the very first time!

First of all, there are several problems I found with their online service:
- their audio streams contain lots of audio artifacts like pops and clicks. The most weird one sounds as if there are 2 sets of speakers positioned slightly differently and it's playing set A then suddenly switch to set B. (This analogy is the best I could describe it)
- songs are chopped off in the middle of playing. Then it repeats the same song again!
- poor UI (forcing me to use IE and PC is the least of my complaint!) It looks fancy for sure but that "floating" display of the current channel and song actually obstructs navigation up and down the channel list. And some real bugs like showing wrong song title appear quite often.

I'm sure these are technical glitches that should go away as XM fine tunes the service. However, I see bigger problem with their programming. Note this is kinda subjective as I focus on music channels and for 3 genre only: jazz, classical and rock. With multiple channels for each genre, I was expecting more modern music, not talking about extremely avant garde stuff, but more like Ornette Coleman, Shostakovich, Bartok since they could have dedicated some channels to mainstream/old school/more commercial stuff. Unfortunately, I don't see them taking advantage of the extra channels. Their choices of jazz and classical music sound too bland to me, no superior to the free local stations here (KCSM and KDFC.) They don't seem to have an extensive playlist either. And I saw too many tunes coming from compilation albums titled "XYZ, Vol. N" This can't be a good sign as I value the effort of DJ putting into playlist and see that as a potential advantage over those computer programmed (or simply shuffle?) stations (e.g. Yahoo Launch!) and those you-pick-what-you-want online music service (e.g. Rhapsody)

On the plus side, XM plays a good variety of heavy music: Liquid Metal plays the latest stuff. Bone Yard focuses on old school metal/rock (heavier than your everyday classic rock stations on the air.) And Squizz specializes in Nu-Metal (e.g. Korn, Linkin Park)

I guess my listening "profile" probably doesn't fit XM's main target audience too well. (Check out forums for jazz on XM: I don't see much complaint about lack of modern jazz. I do see comments on too much vocal in the main jazz channel, which I agree.) Nevertheless, I am certainly happy to see more competitions in the radio business. Maybe someday there will be one that get me hooked. In the mean time, I will stick with Digitall Imported and Radioio (whose jazz and classical programming is more appealing to me. And it's free!)