Hullo...

I don't own an E of yet... but when I do, I would like to use our old portable Sony XM receiver on a strictly portable arrangement (at least until I decide on a more permanent solution). We have two cars, but currently only take the XM for longer jaunts in my wife's New Beetle. It has a cassette player, so we simply use the provided cassette car adapter from the XM line-out, and it works great. My car, however, only has cd/mp3-cd (no cassette), but does have an aux input jack (like EX). I naturally assumed it would work equally well in my car by simply replacing the cassette adapter with a mini-to-mini cable. It does transmit the signal, but there's this overbearingly annoying whirring/whining sound when the engine is running, with the pitch varying up & down with the accelator petal. Thus, no go.

I was just curious if I can expect the same results using the EX aux jack. Is the XM unit not intended to be used in this fashion, or is it an issue with my in-dash stereo? Has anyone used the EX AUX jack for XM signals? Any insight would be appreciated...

You need one of these things for your current line in setup, this should solve all your problems. You may or may not need one of these in the Element, but only know until you try it. These ground loop isolator’s work miracles imho.

http://www.radioshack.com/product.asp?catalog%5Fname=CTLG&category%5Fname=CTLG%5F002%5F001%5F019%5F008&product%5Fid=270%2D054

I know Crutchfield and Circuit City sell these things too, but you can probably find em at Best Buy or Tweeter even.

There seem to be a lot of Element owners/potential owners with XM or Sirius. I just wanted to point out, that there are some great boards on the net for both. I have learned a ton of information from these sites, and they aided me a lot in my purchase decision between XM or Sirius.

www.xmfan.com -XM Only
www.clubxm.com -XM and Sirius Board
www.siriusbackstage.com -Sirius Only

SheeKawgO,

I went with the FM modulator kit, and installed my XM Delphi system in our Element. I did not want to have all the wires showing, and I wanted to also keep my Aux port open for an MP3 player.

The Delphi has a nice mount that works well for the Element. I am not sure what mount you have with the Sony. While some people don't like the FM modulator, I don't hear any problems with it. You can check out the pictures under Xm radio post.

I've got the Skyfi unit with a ground loop isolator that I use in my Neon. But in my Element, I don't need it at all. It sounds great....

AndyCElement