Customer Reviews

Sirius SCH1W Conductor and Wireless Display Controller

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Great idea, but poorly executed. I thought this would be a great way to add sirius to my home theater. It could be hidden away in a cabinet and had optical out for crisp sound back to my AVR. All controlled from an RF remote with display. Perfect right? Well, first the remote has the worst interface I've ever seen in a consumer product. The display is horrible and it eats batteries like crazy. I mean seriously, it should be rechargeable and have a dock because it can go through 4 AAAs in a single day if you actually using the thing. But really the worst thing about it is that its just poorly made. I've just had my second one fail. And a check of message boards tells me I'm not alone. Of course this is par for the course with Sirius. I love sat radio and Sirius programming but Sirius branded products are just awful. I've been a subscriber for 4 years and and I've had 4 failures of receivers. Now that XM is basically sirius, my recommendation is to only buy XM branded receivers.

I actually bought two of these for $40 apiece and planned to give the other away, but after about a week the remote on the first one went bad so I pieced the two together and it has been working fine. First, this is a remote control system only and hooks into any receiver through either RCA or optical input. If you lose or break the remote it is worthless. The remote works great for the controlling Sirius from anywhere in my house, but I can't get the RF blaster to work to control the volume on my receiver while I am outside or in another room. It works fine in the same room. All the information about the channel and artist are displayed on the remote. Because of the location of my receiver in my house I have the antenna in an interior room until I can complete a very complicated wiring project to get the antenna outside, but it works fine 90% of the time. I am not sure why it would lose a signal only sometime. Anyway I like the product a lot and the programming is top notch. I would give it five stars if not for the antenna issue (which can be corrected) and the RF blaster issue. However, I don't think it is worth any more than $50. For that price you can get a portable dock to put in your car and your home.

What a mistake! The user interface is completely counter-intuitive. "Learned" buttons do not keep their memory. The antenna must be installed in a window which was an unexpected surprise. Now I can lower my blinds at night time and listen to the Sirius programming. You also have to aim the antenna to a specific part of the sky. They dont tell you these things before you buy!

The batteries that came with my unit were dead.

But by far, the worst part is that the RF range is less than 20 feet (no walls) despite the fact that Crutchfield claims it to be 100 ft of range. Sirius claims 80 and several web retailers are saying 150 ft.

In addition, Sirius does not allow month to month subscriptions as their website says. Then you commit to buy and they hit you with a $15 set up fee.

Also found out that Sirius will not send you any type of invoice or receipt each time they charge your credit card, unless you agree to subscribe for a year. Instead, they tell you to log in to their site and use the billing history button. The problem is that this page doesnt allow you to print an invoice. It simply shows a date and a charge. If you own a business and the Sirius charge is a business expense, you can easily see why this is such a problem. Those crazy accountants and bookkeepers have a tendency to want an invoice or receipt for any charges and expenses. Go figure.

Save your money. Buy a new CD instead of this catastrophe.

This tuner is a must-have if you own or are putting together a whole-house audio system. I own the NUVO Essentia multi-zone system and this tuner is the perfect complement. The remote control is a programmable remote that can be used with re-broadcasted IR controls like the NUVO keypad. But if you don't own a fancy system like the NUVO, the Sirius Conductor has it's own IR re-broadcaster. You can program the remote for whatever IR signal you need, which gets converted to an RF signal, then back to IR.

Okay - my review has changed to 1 star. After less than a year of use, it died. Total junk!