SIRIUS Stiletto 2 Portable Satellite Radio with MP3 Player

I cannot speak for reception elsewhere, but reception in Boston has been solid and without interruption. Cities with terrestrial reflectors are a great location, for you urban dwellers.

As for Wi-fi, I had the radio connected to my home network in 15 seconds.

Sound quality, usability and the looks of this thing are excellent.

My only grips is the lack if an external antenna for non-city use. You are relegated to using the clunky Altec Lansing antenna phones.

For city-dwellers, four stars. For others, the required antenna phones makes this a three stars at best.

Got this product for Christmas and was a bit concerned after reading all the negative reviews about it. So far, this product has been nothing short of excellent. Have had NO problem keeping a signal while walking outside or while connected to Wi-Fi. The recording feature is great and I'm very happy with the Stilletto 2.

The one down thing is that you have to wear the headphones that come with it to get a great signal (not just any headphones will do) however, they are comfortable and sound good.

I'd recommend this product to fans of Sirius.

I'm really surprised by the handful of negative reviews on here. I have been a long time Sirius user and have just recently upgraded to the Stiletto 2 after a car break-in led to the loss of my old radio.

Switching to the Stiletto 2 has really changed the way I use Sirius. The DVR like capabilities (rewind, record songs, record shows) has done for my radio what TiVo has done for my television viewing.

Due to recent FCC regulations the FM transmitter has led to signal quality loss when broadcasting from the Stilleto to your car radio but a $30 direct FM adapter solves this problem entirely. When you hear people speak of "reception issues" it has nothing to do with the satellite signal but rather their own broadcast to their radio. This fixes the problem. In most cars you can self install this in a few minutes. In my truck it took a 15 minute audio shop install because I had to get behind the radio.

My daily use of the Stiletto usually starts with the recording of my favorite show before I even wake up. I can then listen, pause, fastforward, etc until I get to work. Then I pop the head phones on and head inside and listen to the rest of the show.

An internal MicroSD card allows you to expand the MP3 player capabilities and can give you iPhone/iTouch/Ipod-Nano like storage.

The MP3 player is suprisingly intuitive (better than my iRiver). Overall I could not go back to a standard radio or even a non-Stiletto radio after a few months with this product.

With over 10,000 legit tracks in my iTunes library (and a heavy iTunes tab) it's obvious I love my iPod. I've also been on XM for YEARS now. However, since picking up a Stiletto 2, I haven't touched either. I can record almost 100 hours of CD-quality music (either one song at a time or in blocks of time) AND I can then shuffle or select songs JUST LIKE AN IPOD! Oh, and with built-in WiFi, I don't ever have to worry about having a strong signal indoors. Virtually perfect device!

My wife gave me the Stiletto 2 as a Christmas gift. Here it is New Year's eve and I'm awaiting my 3rd return. Yes, 3 defective units.

In my case, the device will not hold a WiFi connection most of the time and will disconnect in as quick as 30 seconds. It connects and buffers quickly, but drops connection (even while showing a strong signal) in moments. Several times the dropped connection initiated a reboot of the device which takes an exceptionally long time to run as it is.

I've had few problems with the Satellite signal with both the internal antenna as well as the headphones. Both work as well as my GPS receiver in that as long as I have a fairly good view of the sky, I get a signal. If I go inside, I lose it. In fact, I've even had a weak but usable signal inside where I never expected one.

In dealing with Sirius custom support, I sent a highly detailed e-mail with the results of testing with my second unit. Over 48 hours later (they promise a 24 hour response) I got a reply that told me to call their Technical Support.

I get a 'Supervisor' on Technical Support that insists that the problem with my WiFi is a bad internal Antenna. This is the same reason I got for unit #1 that was malfunctioning in a similar manner.

I find this diagnosis doubtful for several reasons.

1) I can connect and initially download (buffering) from any distance from my router that I can get a signal on my laptop.

2) Even sitting less than a foot from the router with full signal and no other RF devices (computer, phone, cell phone, etc) on, the unit drops connection as if I had a marginal connection.

As an engineer who has developed software for networked devices and did some early packet radio work, the failure looks more like an issue with lost packets and time outs rather than a "Faulty Antenna". Especially since the same antenna is used for the satellite reception and I've found that to be quite good given the size of the device.

If you are looking for a portable satellite radio, this is a good unit, but if you are looking for a way to enjoy Sirius programming while working around the house where you can't get a clear view of the sky or the average boombox or stereo is not a good solution, this device seemed like a perfect solution, but is instead very disappointing.

Hopefully Sirius will get the WiFi issues resolved soon, but until that occurs, I CAN NOT recommend this product as the primary use as portable
radio is simply not well served.


UPDATE: There was a firmware update earlier this summer. I have since set up a satellite repeater inside my home so that I do not have to use the WiFi service (the WiFi service also does not carry things like NFL Games, so this is just as well.) However, since the latest firmware update, I have tried several times and succeeded in getting the WiFi service to work as advertised.

I changed NOTHING on my network. So, there must have been something in the Stiletto that wasn't working correctly. In any case, it seems to be fixed.

I'd now upgrade the Rating of this device to a 4. I still have a few reservations, but it's now functioning as advertised.

Things I still don't like:

Recordings can act odd at times. Generally a complete shutdown and restart solves whatever was wrong. Be sure to clean up your recordings so that you don't fill the memory. Once full, really weird things happen.

If you have the device docked and it records something while in standby mode, you can not turn it on without either undocking it, or toggling the on/off several times.

You can not delete Radio Replay items. It says you did, but they are still there.

Many times the processor can't keep up with operations from a remote control. I can't tell you how often I have to hit a remote button more than once for the device to actually do what I ask. This is most annoying when the phone rings and I can't pause the music.

Things that are just AWESOME:

Basically a Tivo for radio. Record what you want, and you can fast forward, rewind, etc. Pause live material and you can then pick up where you left off or move ahead to 'now'. Can also rewind to hear something you might have missed. This only works over the satellite, not on WiFi.

Any music station you listen to is recorded for radio replay. If you can't get a good signal, just replay an old recording.

All in all I'm quite happy with this device now.