Customer Reviews

Xact XTR1 Sirius Satellite Plug and Play Receiver

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(26)

 

 

First off, the XACT is a very nice receiver. I have owned a PNP2 and this receiver and I prefer this one. The XACT, while not wearable, is very portable. You can even buy the Powerpod and take it anywhere you go. The size of the receiver does come with setbacks though, there are only 10 S-Seeks compared to 20 on most of the other receivers. The screen is smaller (although very nice), and the presets require a little more work to set. The greatest thing though is the service itself. It is great not to hear any commercials, and the music streams are top quality. The Talk, News, and Sports are also great. Sirius recently added a Maxim channel, which is quickly becomming one of my favorites. Sirius's sports are great, I am a fan of football and there is nothing like hearing your team that is normally not carried locally. In the end I recommend this receiver and Sirius.

This unit has a difficult-to-read screen (especially in sunlight) and tends to lose power for no reason. But the most compelling reason to avoid it is the company that makes it. I have never experienced worse customer "service" in my life than that I have experienced with XAct. When the screen on my XTR1 got cloudy for no apparent reason, obscuring my vision of the display, I called XAct and after wending my way through their seemingly endless voicemail menu, I finally reached a live human who gave me instructions for returning the unit and remote, saying it was covered under warranty and would be replaced within 7 to 10 days. After a month I called back and when I finally reached a person (who was at first stymied by the apparently mysterious fact that I had called from a DIFFERENT PHONE NUMBER), I was told that the unit had not been replaced (and I had not been contacted) because I had the gall to leave the wall adaptor in the box that I returned. This now meant I was supposed to completely un-install the wiring and antenna from my car and send it all back so they could replace it, and I could then pay to have it re-installed. They could not grasp the concept that they could just send me a new receiver and remote, along with my erroneously included adaptor.

One month later and I am STILL trying to get my new receiver. I have been told several times that supervisors were not available, at lunch, etc. and would call me back, but I have yet to receive a single phone call from this company. I will NEVER buy another XAct product and I will tell as many people as possible to avoid them like the plague. Get the Starmate Replay -- it works much better than the XTR1, has a display that is visible even in bright sunlight, looks great and isn't made by XAct!

I had been using my Xact Receiver since January 05 without problems until the end of September. It began powering itself off, and would continuously reboot with the Sirius logo and without any sound. Since the problems coincided with the Sirius updates, I figured it was a satellite problem. Sirius resent the signal several times, and that didn't fix the problem. They did not advise me of any problems with my particular brand of receiver although I'm sure they have heard plenty of complaints. Once I started having major problems I started looking online for others with this problem, and found quite a few people who are furious about this.

I called the Xact customer service department, and while it was very difficult to get a live person, I finally did. She gave me EXPLICT instructions to follow about returning the unit (including the remote-got to follow instructions people!!!) and approx 3 weeks after sending my defective unit in, I received a brand new factory sealed receiver and remote. They advised me to lower the contrast and brightness on the receiver; it would keep the unit cooler. I also don't leave the unit powered on unless I am actually listening to it; I guess I'm trying to prolong this receiver's life.

I'm not happy with this experience .... I have purchased 2 boomboxes, the car unit and the home docking kit for this receiver...I feel that it is just a matter of time before this one goes out also. I think its a shame that Xact has put out an obviously defective piece of equipment, and that Sirius is not demanding quality control from it's equipment manufacturers.

Buyer Beware on this one folks!!!! DO NOT BUY USED!!!! You will no doubt be buying someone else's problem. I know the next time I have problems, I will be selling my equipment on ebay or amazon!! Any takers?

The good: Nothing. I'm absolutely serious. So off to...
The bad: I got this for Christmas as part of a promo from Sirius. (It was purchased in November and that's when the 12 month subscription started. Of course they don't tell you that until they charge you IN OCTOBER to renew. Thanks Sirius!) The unit did not work out of the box. I still have to turn it on/off several times for it to work. And then about half the time the screen is blank. The FM transmitter is total garbage, I have yet to find a usable station for my whole commute. Ones that work at home don't work in the city. No fault of the unit per se, just bad design in general. And even when it works, the thing is too far from my radio to transmit a good signal, so the crystal clean digital music sounds worse than AM, worse than even a CB radio. I guess the genius designers thought I'd attach this directly to my dashboard so it can be directly above the car stereo, as the customer rep suggested. Sorry, not gonna happen. Plus the output audio cable that is shown prominently in the manual was not included in my kit. So that's an extra expense. The antenna's magnet has scratched my paint (how about a nice rubber base next time?), and I'm just waiting for the cable to snap on me like so many others have mentioned. Did I mention the heat yet? It gets very hot.
The ugly: This thing does not perform to any level of expectation (unles you expect the worst), there is no customer service to speak of and I'm afraid this piece of garbage will catch on fire months before Stern even gets on the air.
Final point: It's no wonder they were giving these away with a prepaid one-year subscription. You get what you pay for.

I purchased the Xact XTR1 last November when I first subscribed to Sirius. I have been disappointed with this item since the first day. First, the item was very cumbersome when I tried to fit it onto my car's console. Second, the boombox accessory has horrible tone - too tinny for my ears. Third, and most important, the receiver gets *very* hot. The unit hasn't overheated but I am very nervous about using it. I've owned this unit one year and am going to ditch it for a newer receiver.

There are better receivers out there....

Bought for Father's Day as well. Being a big time Parrothead, I needed a Sirius receiver so that I could listen to live Bufett concerts. I narrowed my search down to this unit with the Deluxe boombox and car kit.

Some of the reviewers below really did not like this unit. But if you read into their reviews you can tell that they did not do the proper homework. Yes the unit requires a separate power source. No, it does not need a $150.00 attachment for it to work. No, it's not a "Satellite Ipod". What it is, is a transportable unit(from Home, to Car, to Beach or Friends) using the Home, Car, or Boombox attachments. Sound is very good and it's easy to use (Read the manual!) , here it is so you can preview:

(http://www.xactcommunication.com/getdoc.php?id=27)

Yes, it runs a bit hot, but so do all these units. Shut off the FM transmitter and it works cooler. Considering everything that this little unit is doing, is not that bad. Besides, you don't hold this in your hand at all times! As far as the FM Transmitter, it works, just like any other FM transmitter device in the market. The sound is not as good as the sound you get by directly plugging the unit into an AUX port on your radio (if provided). It's hard to get good FM reception in any big city due to all frequencies have a station on them.
Overall, I'm very happy with this unit and would reccommend it to any of my friends and family.

I activated my Stream Jockey W/ Boombox & car kit Mid December 2005 (it was a birthday gift). By 01/28/06 the receiver started re-booting itself intermittently for minutes at a time (it went to the Sirius startup screen for about 10 seconds then shuts off then it restarts). It would do this at random times throughout the day. After a week of hoping in vain that it was a fluke I tried calling their customer service number but gave up after a full 15 minute wait on the phone I tried two more times on different days with pretty much the same results. Then it started rebooting all the time when I turned it on. After finding these reviews I understand why nobody at XACT has the time to answer the phone. Don't let the few over exuberant Amazon reviewers who gave this product high marks lead you astray. You'll notice many of their reviews start with the phrase "I JUST got my new XTR1 and I love it"! Given time and the odds I'm sure many of them will be changing their mind soon enough. I was lucky enough to get a refund from the original retailer even though my purchase was well over 30 days old. I printed out all the reviews I found here and took them with me when I returned unit. The store manager said he had experienced a large number of returns for this product. Fortunately he understood my exasperation and didn't want to alienate his customers. (THANK GOD!)

Now on to the actual product, in my eyes it has some real design deficiencies. The first thing I didn't like was the CHEESY Car mount kit. You can either glue it to the windshield or dash with the attached peel off sticky pad or take the plunge and screw it to something in your car. I was thinking of using it to fill my trashcan (glad I didn't). To top it off the receiver does not quick connect/disconnect to the car mount, you have to fit the receiver to four small guide pins and then screw and unscrew it from the mount (my new Sanyo receiver clicks on and off with ease. I consider the station preset scheme to be poorly designed you have a combination of the letters A-F and the number 1-3 (ie: A1, A2, A3, B1.....F3) to store your 18 presets. I don't know about you but I'd rather just have a full number pad to change channels or presets. The remote has a volume control that does nothing but I'm not surprised it's just par for the course. The optional Boom box has an AM/FM radio with no external antenna so it is no surprise it can only pick up the strongest stations in the area and even then the reception is poor. The lid on the CD player opens by touch so just about every time you move it the lid pops open and while that's not the end of the world it is annoying all the same. If you still have your heart set on this product I would strongly suggest you keep ALL packing material and enclosed printed material in case you need to return it.

I like the Sirius service, so no complaints there. Sound and FM-transmit capabilities are OK, about what I expect from this sort of thing (my sons have iPods they use with iTrips, so I'm used to the hassle of finding a free FM frequency in a crowded radio market).

BUT, the unit is freezing up on me regularly. I'll be listening to a station and suddenly won't be able to change channels. When I cycle the unit (power off and then on) I get the flashing Sirius dog and a blank screen. I thought it was Sirius' signal until I read this thread.

ALSO, the "antenna aiming" screen seems to have very little to reveal about the unit's ability to pull in signals. I can have full "SAT" bars and 1/3 "TERR" bars and still no audio. Also (and this is a question for regulators more than consumers) how can a service that is so dependent on 40KW terrestrial repeaters actually be a "satellite" service? I worry about what reception I'll experience when I get away from the big city.

BUY SOME OTHER BRAND receiver. I can tell (from the other posts here) that things will only get worse from here.

Don't get me wrong it does work about 80% of the time, and I do feel that satellite radio has a few things to work on.
I'm a truck driver and thought I'ld use this thing everyday of the week but it's getting harder and harder to find a free station to broadcast the satellite. Another thing is, if you do find a free station to get it in on, for some reason the other satellite radio company over powers Sirius. So if your driving down the road and the car next to you has satellite, you will hear what ever he is listening to, so you either need to speed up or slow down to get away from him, so you can listen to what you want to.
As far as the unit, it really is more work then its worth.

Antena- The wire is way to long, always in the way. I already had to buy 3 antenas because they are so cheap. At $34.00 a pop it's not cheap. The problem with them is, where the wire goes into the antena, from always putting it on the roof and taking it off, after a month or so of doing that, the wire starts to wear down and just snaps off. I know some of you are thinking why not just leave it on the roof, I don't know where you live but around here it wouldn't last a minute before someone cut it off thinking it's worth something.

The unit- If you can actually fit it on your dash board good luck! And if you can, have fun getting it to stay there. Also it over heats real easy and then the radio will shut off.

If you buy the life time contact, you would be a fool. You'll be lucky to get 2 years out of this unit and the contract is only for that unit, if you buy a new one down the raod you have to get a new contract.

Sirius needs to work on a unit that will automatically look for free stations while you are driving. They do have a lot of different antenas to choose from, but the price needs to come down a bit.

Be prepared, I can see this costing you $20.00 a month as soon as howard stern comes on.

Awesome, Xact has created the next " Ipod"
I love the receiver and sirius.