Polk XRt12 XM Tuner

They are practically giving these things away. At Polk's website you can buy one right now for $269 and they are having a promotion where, when you do buy one, you get a mail in certificate for a free Roady II portable XM receiver (like, for a car). Anyway, that might be a good enough deal for me to try it out. How much good sound can you expect for $269? Radio never sounds as good as CD anyway. You can always run it through even a used DAC and get decent sound. It is music selection I want out of XM.

It sounds lousy compared to FM/CD/LP, obviously dull, muffled and greatly compressed. Internally the parts are cheap SM components that are would not be out of place in a $29 Walkman type personal player.

I am looking into having a dedicated analog stage/power supply built into mine-there is PLENTY of empty space inside the chassis.

I have it setup in a full McIntosh system you can check out my system here. At first I had it going through a C40 and it was quit nice. Then I got the McIntosh MDA1000 DAC and I got a nice digital cable and in a lot of cases it is as good as a CD and in other cases it is not. Like on a Diana Krall CD or DVD it is just better than the XM but on older stuff it seems to shine through. I like it and I love XM I am waiting to see if McIntosh will build an XM Tuner If they do I will be getting one. Good luck

Mark

But how is it compared to FM?

Yes I have. It's OK for backround listening, but falls far short of LPs or even CDs. I might purchase a used DAC to see if that helps. I didn't skimp on cables or power conditioning either!