any one have any ideas of who makes the best xm radio that will hook up thru my aux on my empeg.I do not want to use an fm modulator.

Good question. I've been looking for one that has RCA outs, and none of the ones I can find list it as a feature. They all use the lovely proprietary technology. Though with the Pioneer IP Bus you can get an IP Bus to RCA converter that costs 40 some odd dollars. I would really love to add XM to my car.

if i find somthing i'll let you no.there gona have to make one like that sometime soon I hope.

The Pioneer one works, but after some fun with them earlier I'm now disinclined to trust them.

Though with the Pioneer IP Bus you can get an IP Bus to RCA converter that costs 40 some odd dollars.

I'm inclined to believe that this converter is to add RCA in to an IP-Bus head unit, not to add RCA Out to an IP-Bus device like a tuner or changer.

At various times, I've had the Pioneer, Sony Plug and Play, and Delphi (my wife used to work for XM). The Pioneer is what's currently in my wife's car hooked up as an FM modulated unit. The sound is too bass heavy and muddy, but I don't know how much of that to blame on the modulator. The display is crap, and will only show 10 characters IIRC and won't scroll.

If you want RCA out, your only options are the Sony and the Delphi. They both will have car docks that come with tape adapters, but they both can just use a headphone jack to RCA converter cable.

Years ago, I swore to never have anything to do with Sony products again, yet I ended up with this unit somehow anyway. It reinforced all of my negative feelings about Sony. Screwy button layout, obvious features missing, only 5 presets, unreadable screen, same limited non scrolling display as the Pioneer (although 12 characters, IIRC). The latest plug and play has upgraded the display to be readable, but I don't know if it scrolls. I think it has the same limited presets, and no direct number channel entry.

The Delphi SkyFi, though, is everything I ever wanted. It's smaller than the Sony, but the display is four times bigger. It doesn't have a loud fan like the Sony, yet doesn't get hot like the Sony did. The display is the best of any XM Radio. Huge, and readable. It has the ability to see what's on on other channels while continuing to listen to the current channel. And, it easily pops out of the car to take in and listen to in the house.

The installation can be more unobtrusive than the Sony, because it can go on the front of the dash, instead of just on top of it. Plus, the cradle has a standard size mounting connector that can mate with all sorts of other mounting options.

I can't think of a better way to add XM to the empeg, unless someone were to hack up a tuner port to IP-Bus interface or something. Now that I think about it, does anyone know how IP-Bus or AI-Net or any of these other protocols work? Is it some sort of low speed serial communications tied to line level audio transports? Because we've got the serial port, the line in, the serial lines in the tuner plug, the audio lines there, the extra interface lines in the Patrick tuner, etc.

Even if those buses don't resemble RS-232, has anybody ever seen a hack to interface serial to one of those buses?

I'm inclined to believe that this converter is to add RCA in to an IP-Bus head unit, not to add RCA Out to an IP-Bus device like a tuner or changer.

It will do either. Trust me on this, I'm using it.

thanks for all the info you guys.do you think one will come out anytime soon that has rca's so you can just plug it in to the aux.

Thanks for a heads up on the Delphi. I'm gonna go ahead and look into that.

But yes, about your comments about reverse engineering one of those busses, I think it would be pretty sweet to convert the empeg into the XM Radio controller and use a 3rd party XM Receiver (Ie the Pioneer, etc) so you could have all of the XM on the empeg. Of course, that would take a lovely user app that prolly wouldn't be easy to make. I'm sure the reverse engineering of the bus wouldn't take very long at all, and I'm sure some things already exist for them.

thanks for all the info you guys.do you think one will come out anytime soon that has rca's so you can just plug it in to the aux.

Well, the Sony and Delphi do...

It will do either. Trust me on this, I'm using it.

Can you provide me a link to this? I'm confused. If you add it to a changer to get RCA out of the changer, what controls the changer? Or, does it just sit between two IP-Bus devices and break the audio out as RCAs?

Is the changer controlled by the output? I'd have guessed an input controlled it.

I have it attached to the output of an IPbus device, and it gives me RCA outs from that output. That's the extent of what I know, but I do know it.