My husband and I are pondering over which might be the best as far as our listening pleasure on our new 2009 Ultra goes. We are not use to good tunes while we are riding a motorcycle, so this will be such a great thing! Anyway, we know we have the radio and CD player, but the same old CDs gets old, and sometimes the radio will not come in (well almost all the time) in the mountains. So we're trying to decide which is best, getting an ipod or XM radio.

Now with the ipod (which I'll have to learn how to do) you have to download all the music. With the XM radio, you just find your fav station and go on about your business.

For those of you that have either, tell me your pros and cons on them to help me decide.

Oh, also, do you use your earphones to hear your music or do you just blare it out for the world to hear? If so, can you hear it well that way?

Thanks!

 

My wife and I took a ride last summer from Boston, MA to Yellowstone and back on our 08 Ultra Classic. We had the Ipod and the XM. After a day or two, we'd grown tired of the tunes. We found the XM was fantastic. It allowed us to listen to music of all kinds, news, and national talk radio which seemed to help pass the time. I think satellite radio is the better of the two if you'll only have one. And, if you already have XM Sirius on a car or in your home, the additional unit for your bike might only cost $6.95/month. Either way, you'll like having the backup to your standard radio. I just think the satellite radio provides greater variety.

 

wife and i use both but the i pod has a few problems u have to leave the volume on the ipod all the way up to get good sound from the auxillary input on the radio. this will shorten the battery life to 4-6 hours. after that its back to the radio.one advantage to the ipod use a long jack and the wife can carry it on back.xm will give very good reception overall but will cut out in tunnels or under bridges and hightension lines.we prefer the xm overall.

 

That's the reason I went with XM. I kind of like a wide variety to hit different moods. While you can carry alot of your own personal music on an MP3 unit so you know your gonna here exactly what you want to here, I quite enjoy catching a song that I had forgotten about that would never be in my personal library. Also, you can play MP3 data discs on the stock HD unit and u can get 70-80 songs on a CD - plenty of your personal music to get you to the next gas stop.

The stock speakers are ok, but they won't be at clear 70 mph. You will probably want to upgrade to Hogtunes (It's what I and many other forum members have, but there are others.)

 

we just blair it out for the world to hear unless we are wearing helments (rain or law only)then u can also enjoy the intercom i also got 2 sets of j&m for the helments harley headset sucks.thestock stereo is fine for us unless u got to aftermarket pipes.

 

If your tastes in music are fairly broad (meaning that you can enjoy listening to anything) then XM might work OK for you. If you're looking for more narrowly filtered types of music, then the Ipod would be a better choice. I find XM's playlists to be much too restricted. However, there are a number of channels with different types of music to choose from. Sirius might be a better option if you don't already have a receiver. They seem to have much better selection of music within each genre. I know you can get some Sirius channels with an XM receiver, but I don't know what the choices and costs are. I do just fine personally with the 2 gigs of MP3's on my Zumo.

 

Neither

a Zumo 450/550 and a xm ant, that with the 4gb card gives you "ipod" xm, nav, nav traffic, weather

 

Personally MP3's are the way to go for me. I can't find a station (XM-Sirius) that plays what I want to hear so I program several discs with 10 hrs. of music (approx. 140-200 tunes per disc) each and I am never bored. I'm fortunate to have an extensive music library. A buddy tried out XM radio on his CVO Ultra and reported his displeasure with it cutting out just like standard FM radio in the mountains, tunnels, etc. but also said he had reception even after he was out of range for regular radio.

 

I also like the Ipod better, due to I can have my play list and she can have her play list. Just load it up 4G of memory so around 2000 songs. I just put it on play all and let it go.

I had the XM but was not reliable in a lot of areas we traveled + the monthly cost look at all the songs you could put on the Ipod. I do find that we very seldom listen to the radio now that we have the Ipod.

This is how I have mine set up.
Good luck Rhonda and let us know what you end up doing.

 

I use all three, XM, MP3s on CD data disk, and an MP3 player. My wife and I mostly listen to XM but we sometimes lose the signal if we are riding in the mountains next to a rock wall. We have also had signal problems in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. I wear gloves all the time and sometimes it is a pain to manipulate the buttons on an MP3 player. I get about 110 songs on an MP3 data CD. You can load a lot more songs if you record them at low quality. Whether you get XM or Sirius, it's apples and apples. They both play music and they both have a vary wide variety. I have had XM for six years and enjoy it. One of the things I like is that I can take the control head off the Harley and use it in my XM boom box in the garage. MP3s can get expensive but no more so than CDs. I don't know how tech savy you are but you can also burn all of your cds into MP3s and then load them onto a data CD or an MP3 player. My wife and I always wear helmets so we can listen to music and use the intercom. We enjoy talking to each other. We also use the Harley headsets. I've heard alot of different things about different headsets and haven't been convinced that it was worth spending more money on headsets. There are a LOT of options out there for music. If expense is an issue, music from CDs you currently own burned onto MP3 data CDs is your cheapest option. After you figure out how to do that you can move up from there. XM/Sirius/MP3 player will have setup costs but the MP3 player may end up costing the most depending on how much music you buy. One dollar a song can add up.