Customer Reviews
No bad/not good 
2007-02-25
The sound is pretty impressive.I've never had a long wait in dealing with sirius. If you can't wait a few mins., use the internet. My main complaint is that crappy remote. I wish it had a volume button. It's just too small.
Beware of antenna aiming limitations 
2007-02-21
Hard to get activated. Spent over 2 hours trying to find where the antenna could be aimed. Reception fluctuates during the day. The radio itself is high quality with excellent sound.
Got the short end of the stick 2007-01-19
I was disappointed at this Tivoli table top Satellite FM/AM radio I purchased recently. None of the 20 preset memories are available for any AM or FM band stations to be stored. It could have been a much better and more useful radio if Tivoli or whoever designed the radio for them would have chosen to avail some of the twenty presets reserved for the two other bands - not just the satellite band. Also a better contrast color paint markers and some treble/bass control mechanism and bigger than tiny buttons would have made the radio much more competitive on the market especially for those of us who are interesyted only for home use and who may not exactly have teen ager eye sight.
Still looking for the ideal radio!
Bergram
Tivoli Model Satellite Table Radio/ Sirius Satellite Radio 
2007-01-15
I bought this as a gift and it is well worth the money: very nicely put together and a good looking product.
Cancel Sirius: a mere 1+ hour process! 
2006-12-30
Be aware that Sirius makes it VERY time consuming to cancel your account. XM, so I am told, makes it much easier. Rhapsody is much better if you don't need a radio but can listen via the computer.
No big deal except that you need to explicitly cancel your account or Sirius renews it over and over again. Your service never stops until you tell them to stop it. In person. On the phone.
I'm writing this while on hold at Sirius. It's up to the 40 minute mark and I still haven't succeed in talking to someone who is authorized to cancel my account!
One fellow said I needed to call back later to cancel (after I've waited 30 minutes) but after my expressing dismay he agreed that he could transfer me to someone else who could cancel my account.
Waiting on hold...waiting...waiting...
Well we're up to the 50 minute mark and still nothing. I'm still on hold for the (one!?) person who can authorize cancelling an account.
Oh now I'm told that I might have to wait for a while longer to get to the right person. So I've asked to be transferred to a supervisor...
Ten minutes later I'm still on hold for the Supervisor...
Finally the original guy comes back on and says they're working on cancelling my account. BUT I can't hang up because for some reason they need me to be on hold as they cancel my account.
70 minutes and still on hold...
FINALLY by magic it appears my account has been cancelled.
One hour and 10 minutes to cancel my account with Sirius.
Sigh.........
Terrific sound for a very pretty table radio 2008-02-06
This will be just a brief review, and only of the Sirius part of the radio - I haven't used the AM/FM part.
The radio is small, and beautiful, and has absolutely terrific mono sound. (For a bedside/bedtime radio I see no need to buy the extra speaker for stereo sound.)
With Sirius of course you get whatever music/news/talk you'd like. I'm using it exclusively for the 3 classical channels (and maybe the 24/7 All Elvis All The Time channel every once in awhile). (XM also has 3 classical channels, later on when Sirius & XM merge there will probably still be 3 classical channels). The programming is very good.
However, there are a few flaws to be aware of with this radio. The biggest flaw is a direct result of the design - internally this is a digital satellite radio bolted on to Tivoli's standard analog radio: The remote control doesn't control volume! Amazing limitation! The remote does have a mute function. Also, it has a very limited "sleep" mode - only 20 minutes, and to get it into that mode you have to traverse the menu system - impossible to do from across the room with the remote because you can't see the menus from that distance.
Also worth noting: I am using an external antenna (the "SIRIUS Outdoor Home Antenna", bought from [...], very easy install) and the signal cuts out once in awhile - this may be due to some large trees in the line-of-site to the satellite sometimes block the satellite. Yet the signal strength meter shows "3 bars" (of 9) for the terrestrial signal - I live in Seattle where Sirius apparently has ground repeaters - so why should it ever cut out due to not seeing the satellite?
Still, I'm very happy with the radio. 5 stars for sound + looks, then subtract one star for the annoying lack of volume control on the remote.
sirus radio 2007-08-09
great if you have line of sight to the north otherwise you wont get a signal.
Best of the Satellite-Compatible Radios 2007-04-24
I have no doubt that one reason for the slow adoption of Satellite Radio by consumers is the lousy hardware. I mean, what are they thinking? The collection of products for both Sirius and XM looks like the over-designed, comic book props in Star Wars movies. They're totally dysfunctional. Nothing as elegant as an iPod, with the possible exception of Pioneer's portable radios for XM. Even the car radio's are clunky.
The Tivoli Model Satellite is the one exception to the ugly, under-performing Satellite Radio rule. The sound is about as good as it gets. Indeed, almost too good since it really points up the excessive compression used by both satellite and commercial FM broadcasters. You won't notice this difference until you play an uncompressed CD or MP3 file from your iPod through the AUX port on the Tivoli. Wow! What an amazing sound out of such small speakers. And I don't even have the subwoofer speaker accessory.
The Sirius section works great. It's easy to program. It's got a great "Memo" feature to capture the name and artist of 20 songs you'd like to look up later.
I did invest in a serious outdoor Sirius Antenna prior to the arrival of the Tivoli, so it was just a matter of plugging it in. The FM and AM sections worked fine without any external antennas. It's impressive that they include a serious external AM antenna - something I haven't seen packaged with table radios since the 1970s, and then only expensive "audiophile" models.
As noted by others, the Satellite and AM/FM functions aren't at all integrated. This is basically the Tivoli Model 1 with a Satellite function tacked on as an afterthought.
The huge, bright, multi-line display is awesome at providing all of the information you want at a glance, with a minimal amount of annoying left-to-right scrolling. While the display does automatically adjust to ambient light (a feature that can be turned off and on) it may be too bright for the bedside table for some people.
The Tivoli Model Satellite is to radio what a beautiful 52" flat panel plasma display is to HDTV. It's the best audio you can get for satellite, possibly short of a console deck connected to studio monitors. But, again, given the various compression artifacts on Satellite radio (and the compression is often horrible on talk-only channels) this may be about as good as you dare get.
Unless you have space limitations, it's kind of a waste to spend so much money on a radio only to have mono sound, so plan on buying the (right channel) speaker for stereo.
I have no problem that they didn't include a CD player. An integrated mechanical device would only shorten the useful life of the unit. As just a radio it should last 10-20 years if you're trying to justify the high price tag.
Will Sirius be around in 10-20 years? I don't know. We also hear talk of HD radio coming to AM/FM (but then we've heard about HDTV for 20 years too and it's still not here).
At this price point, it would have been nice if there's been a time-shift feature, sort of a digital VCR (DVR) feature to record shows you want to hear later.
The remote is pretty awful for such an expensive radio, it's just a cheap "membrane" type remote. Inexplicably I got a real remote with my Kenwood Sirius car radio (what good a remote does in the car is beyond me).
Let's hope with the merger of the two satellite services they make more of an effort to create better looking, more functional hardware AND clean up their sound quality. I'd rather they have half as many channels with better sound and produce better programs that are re-run several times a day.
Tivioli is 5 Stars but Model Satellite??? Read and Buyer Beware 2007-04-06
Let me say that I love Tivoli radios. I love the warm and rich sound from such a well designed and sexy cabinet but please save yourself the money and pick up a free satellite radio receiver along with a Tivioli Model Two Radio instead of the Model Satellite. Both Sirius and XM (take your choice) are offering free radio receivers with a subscription that you will have to get anyway to use the Model Satellite for Satellite Radio reception.
You can save yourself $100.00 outright by buying the Model Two instead of the Model Satellite and save $160.00 if you would plan to buy the matching stereo companion speaker for the Model Satellite. The Model Two comes with two speakers right off the bat. This gives you plenty of money left over to buy the Tivoli Model Subwoofer which I have and highly recommend.
I have a Model Two and a Sirius receiver that I can set to transmit on any FM frequency I choose. The Tivoli tuner picks it up beautifully and I still have the auxillary input jack available for my Ipod. The whole Sirius receiver is only 4" X 3" X 1". You don't even know it's there.
One other thing if you haven't heard Sirius Radio has had "serious" financial troubles and has been bought out by XM. The two will run separately for only the rest of the year and then Sirius will cease to be. XM will probably take over some of Sirius' programming but no one knows if a receiver designed to pick up Sirius signals will work after that point and be able to be used to pick up XM broadcasts. You could end up with a very expensive but obsolete radio before the end of the year. I'd sit tight and explore other means as I have of enjoying satellite radio through the wonderful sounding Tivoli line.
Tivoli Sirius Radio 2007-03-17
In the world of tabletop sat radios, the selection is very limited. This is by far the highest quality on the market and it is also self contained with the speaker. I have both Sirius and XM and frankly the quality of the music on Sirius (See a technical review on [...] for this radio) I found this radio exceeded my expectation and would recommend it as the "best in class". Remember this is a developing market and the selection of table top radios are limited.
