Pioneer GEX-XMP3 Portable XM Satellite Radio Receiver w/ Home Kit

The unit is performing as I expect for a portable radio. The unit works quite well in my car with a cassette player adapter playing the XM broadcast from the headphone jack. The reception is very stable while the unit sits in the cup holder between the front seats.

I tested the unit inside a restaurant sitting about 5 feet away from the closest window and the reception was still quite good and the sound quality of the music was quite high . I played around with the EQ setting and found that the different equalizing setting would definitely affect the sound quality.

Not having the special XMP3 car cradle, I'm using the car charger and the cassette player adapter from an older XT Roady unit, so I have not had a chance to test the XMP3's FM transmitting capabilities. However, with reduced FM transmission power as required by the FCC, using FM transmission to listen through a car's FM radio while in a major city like Los Angeles may be a challenge as I have experienced before with many other FM transmission products.

In short, I find the receiving part of this unit is strong. The sound quality of the live broadcast is good. The control is easy to understand and use. I have not tested the mp3 player so I cannot comment on that. The price is high but then it works as it is supposed to.

I am so glad I decided to buy this pioneer product. To have 100% commercial free music plus also have stored music available is the best. The home kit that comes with the unit is super easy to install. The instructions are super easy to understand. The reception is not bad without an external antenna but with the home kit there is no problem. My only advice is when you go to activate this device do it online. Over the phone with an automated service was horrible. Half way through activating it over the phone I hung up and turned on my computer and in less than five minutes my XM radio was working like a dream. Great product. If you want the capability of an ipod or zune with 100% commercial free music, this is for you.

GREAT RADIO but XM2GO software used to upload and to look up past bookmark artist does not work on VISTA 64 Bit. I'm sure Pioneer will come out with a update since most computers are now using Vista 64 Bit. But as a radio its great. Plus if you want you can subscribe to the Best of Sirius and listen to Howard Stern using this radio. Its a great radio. So you can get all of XM plus Best of Sirius. I highly recommend it!! But Pioneer please update your software for XM2GO make it 64 BIT COMPATIBLE!!!!

First of all, in one of the negative reviews the reviewer said they hated the fade-in and -out between songs in the recorded XM. That has been removed with firmware update 1.18.

Secondly I'm loving this thing. I have a bunch of MP3s I bought from Amazon, but I'm not sure I'm going to bother transferring them to the XMP3 because if I don't get a signal, I just listen to some of the stuff it recorded for me.

I don't like the earphones that came with it, since they're in-ear, and if I talk or rustle the cord I can hear it inside my head, so I bought some on-ear headphones.

When using the antennas in the home kit or the car kit (sold separately) I get full reception (my part of Indiana doesn't have hills, let alone mountains). I have more trouble using it off the base, but again this is where the auto-record comes in handy.

The features and size of this unit had me really excited. However, all the features in the world do no good if the sound is so bad that you'll never use it. I'm NOT talking about reception here- i'm speaking strictly of the quality of the sound when receiving the highest signal reception. It's not even stereo quality. When i first put the earbuds in and listened i first thought it was just the channel, nope- all channels. Ok, so it must be the settings- went through all the EQ options and some were better than others but none acceptable. Tried my $50 sony earbuds- no better. It was somewhat better when docked and routed through the home stereo and speakers but not much. I really don't see how they could think people will pay that price for something that sounds so poorly. And i'm not an audiophile. Until just a few weeks ago i've survived the last 12 years w/ a cheap aiwa glorified ghetto blaster as a home system. It's going back.