Anyone consider Spotify as an alternative to SiriusXM?

[Jill B.]

I've been reading here for a while, finally decided to sign up to add a bit to the discussion.

So I went to renew my Sirius subscription last week and after multiple run-arounds with the lovely customer service reps I gave up. I cancelled and just signed up for Spotify. I really only used Sirius for the music, mostly Boneyard and Alt Nation. So far so good, Spotify is pretty cool, but I miss my Boneyard.

I was searching the app store on my phone store yesterday and came across a very interesting app that basically re-creates all of the Sirius music channels within Spotify. Not exactly sure how it works, but it does. It's called "ssradio" (search the google play store).

Has anyone heard of this or seen it before? Just kinda curios to hear other peoples opinion..

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Welcome Jill

Yes on various platforms some folks have created Sirius like playlists and channels. I know on Slacker Radio a bunch of the Sirius channels were recreated and was as good if not better then the Sirius stations were.

 

[king3pj]

Spotify is great. I have tried out services like Pandora and iTunes Radio and they are ok but I think Spotify blows them out of the water. You can create playlists or just search an artist or album and listen to exactly what you want to hear instead of searching for a band and getting similar music. If you are in the mood to discover something new they have a radio feature just like Pandora's. If you are using SirusXM mainly for music I'd say Spotify is a great alternative unless you like hearing DJ's talk between songs. If you like the talk stations that is another story.

They let you store thousands of songs to your smartphone for offline listening too. This is nice if you have a data limit but still want to listen in the car. I set up playlists for my morning run and it automatically syncs any new songs I add to it when I am connected to WiFi. This is great because where I run there is spotty to no service.

 

[whitewolf8214]

Welcome Jill it was okay to me enjoy slacker better!!

 

[Neutron]

Welcome to our humble forum!!

I've used Spotify for over 2 years now and it's pretty neat. I will have SiriusXM as there are times where I just don't want to stream or I want to listen to the news/talk radio.

 

[Jill B.]

Hey Everyone, thanks for the warm welcome.

I listened to Spotify radio for most of the afternoon yesterday at work here. I just started with some Ozzie to see what happened. It was good for a little while, but eventually some odd stuff started playing.

Anyway I'm really happy with Spotify in general. Although I do miss the Sirius music channels. It was nice to just put something on in the background and not have to touch it.

I think I'm going to buy this ssradio app today, well see how it goes.

 

[LER]

I've decided to go with google music Play instead of spotify. I have an android, and love the choices there. I'm a google fan boy I guess.
Both are good

 

[Tampa8]

There is no substitute for SiriusXM in the car, unless you can manage to stream under you data limit. And live where you don't lose the signal. And can get your MLB team when out of your area.

 

[LER]

Very true. I have SXM subs in both cars, and one internet stream sub. I bounce around.

But for just listening at my desk, google music is my (current) choice.

 

[king3pj]

There is no substitute for SiriusXM in the car, unless you can manage to stream under you data limit. And live where you don't lose the signal. And can get your MLB team when out of your area.

That depends on if you want MLB and talk or not. With the Spotify iPhone app I can store albums and custom playlists totaling about 3300 songs for offline listening. That is how I get around my data limit. It automatically syncs and updates my playlists for any changes I made when I connect to WiFi at home. As a bonus the audio quality is much higher than the built in SiriusXM radio in our Envoy.

If you are a fan of the SirusXM talk channels Spotify is not a good replacement. The same holds true if you like the baseball broadcasts. I am an MLB.tv subscriber so that isn't an issue for me though. Subscribers get access to the home and away radio broadcast for every game as well as Spanish broadcasts when available. For the ESPN Radio fans there is a free ESPN Radio app that gives you live access to multiple ESPN Radio stations around the country and the national broadcast.

The other talk stations like Howard aren't available to me but I couldn't find enough there to justify paying the rates SiriusXM is asking for. Satellite Radio had some stuff I really liked but my Spotify subscription plus multiple free streaming radio apps and podcasts gives me more than enough to listen to in the car.