Official Slacker Forums

[skoone68]

Hi all!

I'm a 7-year XM subscriber who is beyond fed up with the way Mel and the 'Dog Pile' has ruined my precious and beautiful satellite radio service. I'm still with XM, however, I just purchased an 8gb Slacker player from the company web site. If this unit performs as well as I expect, then come November I'll be waving bye-bye to XM as I flatly refuse to help pay Stern's salary, along with watching much of my very talented XM on-air staff receive pink slips and then get kicked out the door with lousy severance packages that they didn't ask for.

Anyway, I have spent some time with Slacker's web interface and the music quality is superb. I'm quite satisfied, and it reminds me of the early days with XM. The only downside I find with Slacker is that it isn't integrated into my car's tuner like XM. I'm stuck with a player hanging off of my dash which I am not crazy about, but again, it beats having to put money in Mel's pocket.. or Howard's either.

I see that MikeV is in the group. He and I go way back to the early days of XM. I signed on with a Pioneer FM modulated unit right around Thanksgiving Day 2001. Looks like nearly 7 years later, we both start out on a new path! I'm honored to be a part of the group!!

Now, to wait on my Slacker to ship...

Kind Regards-
Steve
Charlotte, NC

PS-- Mike, I'm so glad I had the opportunity to tag along with the very last XM studios tour last year. Since XM is no more, it's something we can say that we've done (and seen) that few others haven't!

[daren]

welcome to slacker!
Hope ya like your G2 player.

[MikeV]

Yep... I'm here! And loving the music even more, since it sounds better, is exactly what I want, and works anywhere! My account with XM is done and gone after almost 7 years... and at least for now, I have no intention of looking back.

Slacker couldn't have picked a better time to release their G2 player!

[KTMCDO]

well count me in as well i just purchased the 4gb from the slacker site
i may purchase the 8 gb at a later time

[mnxmfan]

I've been with XM 6 years as of October, and I too now own a Slacker.

Loving it so far. I'm really also thinking I will be done with XM very soon. The sound quality, along with layoffs, have put my subscription on a very thin line.

I will defitinely miss the live radio aspect and DJ interaction, and I'll also miss some of the talk radio I have come to like to listen to. But none of that is more important than sheer variety in playlists, which Slacker seems to have after 48 hours of listening.

[joeperry97]

I haven't cancelled the XM subscription yet, but it won't be long that's for sure. I've had my G2 for a week now and haven't turned on my inno once.

[bobjob]

I stumbled on this service from an ad i saw in a bestbuy weekly, I recently cancelled XM after they changed the one station i listened to (fungus53) to and ac/dc 24/7 channel. I had a sub with xm for 5+ years. I just ordered the 8gb today and started to try and recreate the music variety that fungus had (although I doubt the playlist will be as deep). So far I'm impressed by the artists available but I need to see how deep the tracklists get.

[MikeV]

So far I'm impressed by the artists available but I need to see how deep the tracklists get.

Hopefully as deep as you want. If you're creating your own station, use the "Fine Tune" settings to select whether you want the channel to be all hits, familiar songs, or those fringe songs that you never heard anywhere except the albums, and also choose how much artist discovery you want.

This post by one of the Slacker folks details all the fine tuning options and how they affect what gets played on your custom stations.

[rawveeda]

@bobjob
Ditto. When Fungus was dropped I dropped (I will not even mention their name any more on this forum).
I got my Slacker G2 since then I have been very happy. Also you can email Chris Kilpatrick (programmer for the punk channel) with questions & band requests. He got one of my favorite bands (The Di ckies) right where I need to hear them.

Maybe we should all send a Thank you card to Mel.

ok...Yes I know not worth the effort.

when I previewed the post my favorite bands name was removed & dashed out.
extra spaces WahHOO!

[op2k]

The list grows.....I also WAS a 7 year subscriber to XM. It got to the point that I was just getting frustrated with the playlists on their stations. I eventually made a list of Pros's and Con's. There was only one on the Pro side for me, so I cancelled...BEFORE I even received my G2, because I thought that Slacker was gonna be that good. It hasn't disapointed so far.

[acadnut]

Here's another "me too" ... I'm a current XM sub, and will keep it more than likely just for the talk stations.

I'm not happy with all the super niche channels ie; Michael Jackson, Metallica, AC/DC ...

And, as lame as this may sound, I enjoyed the * out of Heidi Selexa on the 80s.

Any chance we could get a Heidi channel ?

[bobjob]

@bobjob
Ditto. When Fungus was dropped I dropped (I will not even mention their name any more on this forum).
I got my Slacker G2 since then I have been very happy. Also you can email Chris Kilpatrick (programmer for the punk channel) with questions & band requests. He got one of my favorite bands (The Di ckies) right where I need to hear them.

Maybe we should all send a Thank you card to Mel.

ok...Yes I know not worth the effort.

when I previewed the post my favorite bands name was removed & dashed out.
extra spaces WahHOO!

Glad to see a fellow (and former) 53 listener. Trying to remember all the bands lou played has been tough but my fungus like channel is coming along. I dont know what I will do about missing Ranc*d radio and complete control.

[jmark2001]

Hmm, I had to sit in at a hotspot for three hours in order to load up my slacker. I don't think I will be giving up my XM radio anytime soon.

[mnxmfan]

Hmm, I had to sit in at a hotspot for three hours in order to load up my slacker. I don't think I will be giving up my XM radio anytime soon.

The initial load is bad, but the "refreshes" are usually only about 10-15 minutes if you do them often enough. The reason is, the songs are about 1meg each. Each station loads about 100 songs initially, then refreshes based on tastes, new songs, etc.

On a six meg connection, it took me about 2 hours to load 15 stations initially. Now, every night before I go to bed, I refresh and it only takes 5-10 minutes.

[JAdamz]

I was an XM subscriber but I only really used it for a couple of stations that didn't give me much besides music (Boneyard, Top Tracks, Big Tracks). I figured Slacker would be much more suited to my tastes since it provides better sound quality and artist selection based on my preferences only. Cancelled XM a few months ago and haven't had any second thoughts.

Plus Slacker doeesn't cut out when I go under an overpass or drive through the mountains! :)

[jmark2001]

Slacker has turned out to be a very bad experience for me. Let's see: I had to sit for hours in a hotspot to do the initial load. Next, I couldn't refresh anywhere near my home because my slacker couldn't or wouldn't connect to any of the hotspots in my neighborhood (these were ok spots, too, as I could connect with my ipod touch). It has crashed six times in one week. It repeats the same song every time I turn it on so that I have to use my skipping to get to something new. Drop XM? I am more likely to throw this piece of junk out.

[MikeV]

Slacker has turned out to be a very bad experience for me. Let's see: I had to sit for hours in a hotspot to do the initial load. Next, I couldn't refresh anywhere near my home because my slacker couldn't or wouldn't connect to any of the hotspots in my neighborhood (these were ok spots, too, as I could connect with my ipod touch).

First, it sounds like you need to set up your own WiFi network, rather than use other peoples' networks all the time. Just because a WiFi network is not secured doesn't make it a free hotspot. Also, there's an alternative to WiFi syncing... there's a Windows app that can be downloaded that allows syncing via USB. Visit Slacker's Support page, then click Personal Radio Players and look under Downloads.

Also, it's known that the first sync takes a long time. The player initially downloads 100 songs per station that you have loaded on it. For 10 stations, that's 1,000 songs. All future syncs are considerably faster, even if you've listened to a couple of stations for a couple of hours each, since it only replaces the songs you've listened to on those stations.

It has crashed six times in one week. It repeats the same song every time I turn it on so that I have to use my skipping to get to something new. Drop XM? I am more likely to throw this piece of junk out.

I can't speak to these, since I certainly haven't had the same experience. And just from reading around here, it's apparent that others don't have these issues as well. You should definitely contact Slacker's support folks. I'm sure they'd love to get your G2 working properly. But make sure that you have the ability to reliably sync your G2 before calling them, as I'm sure they'll want you to make sure it's able to connect to their service.

[SatRadioRules]

Not technically a defector....but I added a Slacker G2 (4GB) last night to complement my 4 XM subs. Loving the Slacker, concerned about the upcoming XM changes....

[jehma]

I'm not a defector either, since I'm keeping my XM subs until I see how it all falls out. However, I'm been listening to a lot of Slacker lately! I've always envied the Sirius Jam On channel, but now that I see the Slacker Jam channel (programmed by Lenny Bloch), I'm a happy camper.

Hello to the familiar XM names - MikeV, MN :)

[acadnut]

I'm not a defector either, since I'm keeping my XM subs until I see how it all falls out. However, I'm been listening to a lot of Slacker lately! I've always envied the Sirius Jam On channel, but now that I see the Slacker Jam channel (programmed by Lenny Bloch), I'm a happy camper.

Hello to the familiar XM names - MikeV, MN :)

Harumph !

:D