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by Tom Samiljan on October 7, 2008 at 12:30 PM



Satellite Radio

The promise: This was supposed to be the great hope for music and radio lovers everywhere -- dozens of radio channels catering to specific interests that were outside of the top 40 we hear on regular radio, with CD-quality sound and reception pretty much anywhere in these 50 states.

The reality: Sure, we've got 200-plus radio channels now, but somehow we rarely hear the music we want to hear on any of those stations, whether it's on the alternative or Broadway channel or '70s rock or news. And frankly, there are just too many channels to wade through. Sometimes it just feels like the stuff is playing on auto-pilot based on music-genre tags or some other kind of Muzak-inspired algorithm -- whatever happened to human DJs being deeply involved in what they play. Yes,we know that XM prides itself on using real DJs, but somehow their playlists just aren't cutting it. We'll take our good ol' college radio or Internet stations back as soon as we can get them blasting in our cars. Also, CD-quality sounds metallic and overly digital -- we prefer actual CDs, and we've lost reception plenty of times.

Bottom line: We can live without it, particularly in this day and age of iPod integration in cars that lets us listen to our favorite podcasts and music. And with Wi-Fi hotspots in cars already a reality, we plan to listen to our favorite Internet radio stations while driving very soon.

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