Review — SiriusXM Tour Satellite Radio Receiver with 360L Technology

• Model: SXWB1V1
• Personalized Stations Powered by Pandora
• On-Demand Library — access to a wealth of recorded shows, interviews, and events
• Xtra Channels
• Real-time updates of your teams’ scores
• Voice search, tuning and discovery
• Bluetooth audio streaming

SiriusXM’s next-generation 360L technology combines satellite and streaming features together to give you 360 degrees of listening. 360L Streaming features require a Wi-Fi connection with Internet access.

Included in the box:

• Tour radio unit (includes Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity for streaming)
• Vehicle dock
• Magnetic mount antenna for satellite signal
• Power adapter
• Aux-in cable
• Vehicle dash mounting accessories
• Quick-Start guide

This is the Tour with the home dock (sold separately):

First, some background.

I became an XM subscriber in 2005 with a Roady 2 radio unit. I got it a day or two before the July 7, 2005 London bombing attacks, so I was fascinated being able to hear CNN, MSNBC and Fox News — along with BBC World News — in my car during my 60 minute commute.

I have owned a few satellite radios in my time. Not necessarily in this order:

Roady 2

Roady XT

Mirge

Onyx

Onyx Plus

Edge

MyFi XM2Go

SkyFi

Samsung Helix

SkyDock

XPressRCi

Audiovox XMCK30

Audiovox Xpress EZ

Tour 360L

Sound Station TTR2

Grace Digital Mondo+

So, yeah, I know my way around a satellite radio.

But the SiriusXM Tour with 360L is more than a satellite radio. And that’s why I love it.

I had read about the Lynx, a radio that tried to combine satellite and wi-fi SiriusXM radio feeds. It didn’t get great reviews and has since been cancelled.

The Tour does that — satellite and wi-fi — and adds another layer.

If you used a SXM satellite radio, you could “only” get the satellite feeds. I say “only” because 150 (Sirius) and 200 (XM) stations is quite a lot. The SXM smartphone/tablet/online app takes that to something like 300 stations, plus on-demand shows and videos. The tour combines that (except without video) so you get all the satellite stations AND all the online stations AND the on-demand.

Oh, yeah — AND Pandora special mix stations, which I’ll get into later.

Out of the box, the Tour hardware is fairly normal for SXM — a vehicle dock, antenna, power line, mounting options . . . Stuff that was in previous radios. The Tour radio unit itself is different — relatively thin, flat (no knobs), one power button and a docking port on the bottom. (There is a mystery mini-USB port on the side for no apparent purpose.) All interaction is touch-screen (unless you get the home dock which includes not one, but TWO remotes. Why they didn’t put on in the vehicle kit — where you really need it — is beyond me.

I only use mine at home, so I had to buy the separate ($50) home kit — which includes the two remotes, dock, antenna, power.

Create an account, or add the radio to your existing subscription (about $20/month), and power it up. Nice, bright, clean screen.

I should add here that the 300+ channels I mentioned are only available if you’re an All Access subscriber.

Learning the interface and making your way through the stations takes a bit of time to get around, but it’s not that difficult — just different than any previous SXM radio you’ve had. The remote helps a lot.

First step (after activation) is setting up wi-fi. If you’ve set up your phone or laptop, this is simple enough. The Tour will seamlessly switch between the satellite signal and the wi-fi signal, depending on the station you’re listening to.

For example, if you’re a fan of The Beatles Channel (18), it will default to the satellite signal. If you want to listen to one of the several on-demand shows from The Beatles Channel, it will switch to wi-fi. In the mood for Real Jazz? Satellite. Interested in Latin Jazz instead? Channel 766 is Luna, and on wi-fi.

I said it switches seamlessly, and that’s kinda true. It might take 5 seconds to go from a satellite channel to a wi-fi station.

If you have a good sound set-up, the sound quality is pretty good. There was a time when the SXM sound quality was not so hot. The Tour seems (to my ears) to fix that.

Another feature of The Tour is Bluetooth. I know, I know, even your toothbrush can have it now, but it’s really nice on The Tour if you have a good pair of BT headphones. I really enjoy the sound quality on my Surface Headphones 2. Audiophile quality? Maybe not, but I have an older set of ears, and audiophile is not one of their talents. But the music sound quality is quite impressive (i.e. excellent) to me.

Talk/sports/news channels can still be iffy. Good, but not at the music channel-level.

Here’s a little history on the channels offered by SiriusXM. Back in 2001, XM (and Sirius the following year), only had satellite feeds. The companies merged in 2007 (or was it 2008?) and they began combining similar channels. Then they launched the online versions of those channels. Soon, they added online channels not available on the satellites.

(Side note: Some folks like calling the satellites “birds”, even though they’re not “birds” in any way, shape or form. I refrain from using that silliness.)

Around 2011, SXM figured out a way to squeeze in about 20 extra channels to beam down from the satellites, but only certain new radios (the Edge, the Onyx Plus) could receive them. These new stations were named “Xtra” channels, and also became available online. In 2019, SM added over 100 new online-only Xtra channels.

I bring all this up because the Tour radio unit is the only available device to receive all satellite, Xtra and online channels. (I believe the Lynx radio could too, but it’s been discontinued.) Plus, the Tour can receive five new channels that I believe are available only on the Tour.

Channel discovery on the Tour takes a bit of learning. I’m using the remote control from the additional-cost home kit, which makes things much easier for me — but I’ll try to include the on-screen touch controls as well.

If you know the channel number of the station you want to listen to, just enter it on the remote numbers. For example, 27. The unit will take a moment, then pull up an on-screen keypad. It will show the numbers on the left, and the station just entered on the right. To switch to the station, enter “Go” on-screen, or “Select” on the remote. You would think they would use “Go” or “Select” for both the screen and the remote, but no. Switching to the station takes 1–5 seconds.

On-screen, you can touch the “Ch” number (shown as “Ch 68” below), and it will bring up the keypad/Select/Go screen where you can manually enter a channel number.

Notice the “RELATED” button. Pressing this brings up similar stations, and also allows you to “create” a Pandora station. More on that later. But this is what the “RELATED” screen looks like.

“RELATED CONTENT” shows channels SXM thinks are similar to what you’re listening to. “AVAILABLE SHOWS” is for on-demand content, if the channel you’re tuned into has any.

Note: I prefer the remote because sometimes the touch screen requires two, three, four touches before it registers. Most of the time, it works the first time; sometimes not. While trying to take screenshots of these, I had to press several times before it registered, and sometimes it never did. I had better success with the remote, but I had to learn to navigate first.

Sports play-by-play can be interesting as you may have a choice between the satellite feed — which is usually the home team only — or the online broadcast, where you can choose the home or away feed. (The online feeds usually have better sound quality.)

Occasionally, the online stations will just say “Loading” even if they’re playing the sound. This may have something to do with the Wi-Fi signal . . . I’m not sure since my Wi-Fi at this time was just fine. And, eventually, the screen will catch up.

If you’re a channel surfer like me, someone who enjoys going from channel 27 to 28 to 29 to 30 (and on and on), you can do that two different ways: On-screen there’s a pair of buttons labeled “< CH” or “> CH” which will move you one channel up or down. The remote has the same function. Pressing those brings up a carousel of channel cards (for lack of a better term), but the station will change to the new selection. You can use the carousel to switch to the next station, if you want.

Another form of channel discovery is the category listings. SXM is pretty good at breaking down stations into categories, such as Music > Rock, or Sports > Talk.

On that last screen, you can see those round dots at the bottom, which indicate there are several other screens showing more channels.

In 2019, SiriusXM purchased Pandora radio. If you’ve ever used Pandora radio, you know what a Pandora station is. You type in an artist or genre, and Pandora creates a “personalized” station for you. Sometimes, this works great; sometimes not. I once created a “Queen” channel, and when I pressed play, it started playing a David Bowie song. Now, I like Bowie’s music, but I wanted to hear Queen. Now, you can press the thumbs-up or thumbs-down button, but still . . . If I wanted to hear “Fame” I would have created a Bowie channel.

On the Tour, creating a Pandora station works a little different. When you’re on a SXM station, press “RELATED” and one of the options will be to create a Pandora station — it is based on the ARTIST you are listening to, not the GENRE of that station. But after that, it’s remarkably similar to using Pandora on the web or your phone. There’s a thumbs-up/down button, a skip-to-next button, etc. You can also save the Pandora station to your Favorites.

Speaking of Favorites, on most SXM radios, you can save up to 10 satellite channels as a favorite. On the Onyx Plus radio (which I use in my car) I can save 20 satellite stations. On the Tour, you can save 18 stations — online, satellite, Xtra, on-demand shows and/or Pandora stations. Why 18? I have no idea.

To add a station, just dial it in, then press the star symbol on the radio screen, or on the remote. Then press the “Add Channel” square to add it.

You can move/organize the favorite if you wish. As it says on the above screen, “Press and hold a tile to move or delete.” This works, but is quite clunky. Deleting a station is straightforward enough, but moving takes a little practice. (After spending roughly an hour organizing my favorites as I wanted them, the next day I discovered they all moved back to where the originally were and I had to do it all over again. Fortunately, I had gotten better at it and it didn’t take as long.)

One of the other issues that is a bit perplexing is the start-up time of the unit. It can take 90 seconds (1–1/2 minutes) to load and have sound start playing. A “normal” SXM radio typically takes 5–15 seconds, depending on the model. Apparently, the Tour uses Android for its operating system, and it doesn’t appear to be optimized yet. (As I write this, the Tour has been publicly available for about 6 weeks.) Even once sound starts playing, it appears to be still loading stuff in the background because if you go to change a station or try to use another function, it takes additional time.

A question you might have is “Can I listen to the Tour without connecting to Wi-Fi?” The answer is yes. “Can I listen to the Tour without the satellite feeds?” The answer is yes. But of course, either of these limitations cripples the full potential of the radio. If you only want to listen to the satellite feed, buy an Onyx. If you only want to listen to the online feeds, download the SiriusXM app on your phone or table — or listen through a web browser on your computer. You’ll save a lot of money. The purpose of the Tour is what SXM calls “the 360L listening experience” — satellite and online feeds in one radio.

You can see in this screenshot that it shows the Wi-Fi signal (the fan symbol) and the satellite signal (the bars) in the upper right. There is also an indicator of which output source you’re using — aux or Bluetooth.

Setting up with Bluetooth headphones is relatively straightforward — go to Settings, Preferences, Change Audio. You can pair your headphones or speaker there.

You can also see a microphone logo in the upper left corner of the screen. This is for “voice control”, which is supposed to act like Siri or Alexa, though in a more limited way. (There is also a button on the remote.) When I said “Channel 6”, it brought up a menu offering to create a Pandora station featuring the number 6, or Channel 6 (the 60’s on 6). When I said “Deep Tracks” (a standard satellite station), it brought up the channel tile for Ch 27, Deep Tracks, and at least six other tiles for on-demand shows. When I asked for a specific artist — “Richard Bone” — it offered to create a “Richard Bone” Pandora station, or Ch 68, Spa, where Richard Bone’s music often appears. Actually kind of nifty. However, voice control is a slow feature, taking 20 seconds to display results the first time I used it, and 10 seconds the second time.

In the settings, there’s a screen showing the signal strength. It’s not clear to me the difference between “High Band” and “Low Band”, but from what I could tell from some online research, the High Band is XM satellite signals and Low Band is Sirius satellite signals — at least, that what someone claimed. I don’t know if that’s the actual case.

The Tour has other settings you can use — for example, some channels broadcast material with explicit language and are indicated with an “XL” symbol. You can block these stations in the settings. You can also block specific stations if you wish.

How much does the Tour cost? In August 2020, I paid $150 (which comes with the vehicle kit). Another $50 for the home kit. So, $200 total. Plus the monthly subscription which runs about $20-$30/month.

Do I think it is worth it? I do. You may not. But I do utilize various online and on-demand content and enjoy it a lot.

— Smort