Sirius to retailers: stop taking Stiletto pre-orders

It looks like those folks jonesing to get their portable Sirius on are going to have to wait just a little bit longer, as the satellite radio giant has apparently asked all of its retail partners to suspend pre-orders on the Stiletto 100 until further notice. The TSS Radio e-tail site where the information first appeared claims that they "still expect the Stiletto near the end of September / early October," although another authorized retailer, Crutchfield, has taken down its pre-order page altogether. So far no one seems to know exactly why Sirius made this move at such a late date, but aside from supply problems (which are unlikely), the major contender for the delay would seem to be our old friends over at the RIAA. What's strange about this scenario is that unlike rival XM -- which is still battling the record labels over licensing fees for their portable players / recorders -- Sirius seems to have made nice with the recording industry following the little brouhaha over its dockable S50 player. Bottom line is that we don't like a mystery, so we're gonna poke around a little more and see if we can get to the bottom of this unexpected development -- meanwhile, it's SiriuCE or bust for live, pocketable (albeit crappy) Sirius content until further notice.

[ronnie @ Sep 8th 2006 7:07PM]

there are 2 satellite radio companies. xm has more subs.

Thus, Sirius is not a satellite radio "giant" unless the word giant is referring to washed up howard stern's paycheck

[evo @ Sep 8th 2006 7:27PM]

Christ, can the trolls leave even one story alone? If you must respond to a troll below, at least respond to Evan's "albeit crappy" comment instead of idiot ronnie. *sigh*

[Owen Bird @ Sep 8th 2006 7:45PM]

Do people even know what Sirius players are out there? I have had a FULLY portable SIRIUS player for over a year and a half now. Can any one say XACT communcations? Or even try a quick google search, before stating in an article saying that the Stellito was the only way to get portable Sirius in so many words. I mean really now.
Can I work for this site as a writter then? lol
I would actually do research on things before I posted them.
So all in all I like my Sirius Portable very much.. maybe a little bulky but whatever I have a back pack and it fits in there with my PSP, Coffee Thermos (holds six cups) and LapTop just fine, and not only that, but the Antena doesnt need to be out side of my back pack. I can have it all tucked away in my bag with the head phones coming out the H20 port I have on my "Hiking" back pack. I can then go on a nice bike ride and or hike and have live streaming radio right to me. Even works out on the ocean when I was out with some friends Sailing in the Bay Area, CA.

[cecilia @ Sep 8th 2006 8:25PM]

yeah, I have a friend with a portable Sirius radio. I never caught the name or model number....usually when I've seen him carrying it around (lunch hour walking arounf Manhatten), he's been listening to the very popular Howard Stern. Which is where MY Starmate tends to be tuned to.

Another friend has a Sirius boombox - and has been known to carry THAT around even though it's not small.

I'm not sure what the problem is, but those of us listening to Sirius are Very Very happy.

[sabeen @ Sep 8th 2006 10:11PM]

i just wanted sirius back for the sports offerings....i had it a few years ago before the nfl thing but traditionally their equipement is just so beyond pathetic in style and offerings i left them....was thinking about getting back into the game again, this time with xm possibly but the sports for sirius are just too much for me to pass up so its why the stilletto made so much sense for me. i preordered last weekend from crutchfield but it seems like all that is up in the air.

[Ferris @ Sep 9th 2006 7:53AM]

Sorry, but Sirius and XM just don't matter to me. There's no way that I'm going to pay a monthly fee just to listen to the radio. I can tolerate a few commercials with no problem at all. Besides, the specific format stations are usually too specific. I prefer to have a single station with good variety instead of a highly targeted, single format station.

[William D. Kid @ Sep 9th 2006 10:15AM]

I think the demand was much greater than was anticipated. Although it was mentioned that a manufaturing problem did not exist, I am not so sure of that. Also, is it getting painfully obvious that SIRI and XMSR is a target of many groups that have a vested interest in killing both companies? Let's take a look:AAPL, MSFT, both have huge reason to see SatRad fail. The FCC/RIAA controlled by big lobby money from the Main Stream Media which has a HUGE interest in seeing SatRad fail. SIRI/XMSR needs to get as many devices into public places as possible, as quickly as possible. There is billions of AD dollars that will go down the drain at the MSM if SatRad is not stopped. Look for it to get worse before it gets better.

[barry heaver @ Sep 9th 2006 2:28PM]

ferris:

i dont know where you live... but here in boston where traffic delays are a daily(and weekend) occurrance, 5 minutes of commericials doesnt cut it.

sabeen:

sirius and xm both have the ugliest, tackiest, and poorly built electronic devices. they both need to get over the pathetic timex-esque backlight displays. take a few design cues from sony or apple, at least.

[Frankenstein Black @ Sep 17th 2006 1:11AM]

SiriuCE 2.0 ROCKS!! Been listening to Sirius on my WM5 Celly for months and it works just fine even via GSM/EDGE/UMTS and WIFI. Make sure to use the TCPMP player. Its sounds much better than WMP. Oh, here are the URLs.
http://www.emulamer.com/SiriuCE.html
http://www.emulamer.com/siriuce2.html
Why fiend for an S100? GO GET THAT APP!!

[JazzyJeff502 @ Sep 25th 2006 10:47PM]

...and until this comes out, we can at least listen to a handful of Sirius channels (Howard Stern not included, with somewhat crappy audio) on our Sprint mobile phones.