TAO Electronics XM2go Satellite Radio Receiver
- Usage: Car Home
- Design: Compact
- FM Transmitter: Included
- Service: XM
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Record at home, playback anywhere.
Pros
Everything you need included. Good sound. Scrolling Stocks & Sports. 5 hours recording time.
Cons
Requires subscription. Bizarre recording restrictions.
Recommended it?
Yes
The Bottom Line:
A very good first try for a recording satellite receiver. I'm sure later versions will address the minor recording quirks. If you just record music, you'll never notice.
I purchased the MyFi intending to replace an early Sony PnP which had always been plagued by a nearly unreadable display. The prospects of being able to record content and play it back in places where reception is not possible intrigued me.
What's in the box.
Just about everything you need to operate the MyFi in almost any environment is included which explains the rather steep price versus other radios.
The MyFi unit itself.
Rechargeable lithium battery.
Earbud style headphones.
Belt clip/stand.
Clip-on antenna.
Protective case.
Remote control.
Home kit consisting of a cradle, antenna and AC power adapter.
Car kit consisting of a cradle with various mounts, magnetic mount antenna, cassette adapter and DC power adapter.
The MyFi itself is a rounded unit slightly larger and thicker than an 8mm tape cassette. The easy to read backlit display takes up most of the top half of the unit with a series of buttons below that control the various functions and a small thumbwheel is located on the right side. I found the size of the unit right for my hand.
Setup
Normally, you dock the MyFi in either the home or car cradle, which connects the charging source, the antenna and a line out for connection to an amplifier. If you do not have a line out or earphone attached, an internal FM modulator is activated which can be set to 12 different frequencies (at the lower and upper ends of the FM band). The range of the modulator is sufficient to work in my Honda with a rear window antenna and if the correct frequency is selected I can place the unit in an upstairs bedroom and be able to receive it downstairs in the kitchen. Though in the same position, I can't get reception in the bathroom adjacent to the bedroom. The car cradle has various mounts including a clip for the heater/AC outlets, though that fits my Honda, it's not really an optimum position. The problem with cars nowadays is there's little dashboard room for mounting your own equipment. The Sony PnP fit perfectly in a cubbyhole in the front of the console, no such luck with the MyFi. There are 3rd party vendors for kits to mount many types of equipment to various places on the dash, usually near the radio or heater controls you may need to avail yourself of their services.
The length of the antenna cables are long enough to stretch across a room or reach the front dashboard of a car from the trunk. A menu setting brings up an indicator so you can aim your home antenna for best reception.
The setup menus allow you to select up to 20 stocks for the scrolling display and numerous sports tickers.
For portable use, the MyFi has its own internal antenna which doesn't work as well as the car or home antennas but may be OK for you. There is also a clipon antenna which could mount on a cap which improves reception somewhat, though I find the clip to be a little flimsy. I like the belt clip which holds the unit securely and can also convert into a stand which is perfect if you want to set it next to an FM radio and listen.
The infrared remote control has good range and looks like it can duplicate all of the functions you can do through the keypad.
Operation
After unpacking the home cradle and adapter to initially charge the battery (a few hours, during which you can subscribe to the XM service via phone or internet) you are ready to play with the MyFi.
You can select the channel you want to listen to in many ways, directly through the numerical keypad, rotating the thumbwheel or using the left/right keypad to access memories or "groups" of channels. I tend not to use the memories, instead opting to directly enter channel numbers.
Pressing the "display" button changes how information is presented on the screen. You can get a title/artist display, add a stock or sports ticker or change to a large type scrolling title/artist display.
The volume seems to be loud enough to use in noisy environments, I have found though that late at night the lowest volume setting is just a little louder than I'd like it. The quality of the audio is very good, in my opinion better than the Sony PnP it replaced. You can set the Bass and Treble to your tastes in the set-up menu.
The operating time between battery charges is said to be 5 hours, I haven't been able to test whether that is the case.
Recording
Unlike the SkyFi which allows you to pause and resume playback for a short period of time, the MyFi will record (according to Delphi) up 5 hours of content for playback at a later time, you cannot pause while recording. When the recording buffer is full, the earliest content is deleted. You record in two ways, by pressing the 2go button while listening, or by setting up to 2 scheduled recordings (only 2 allowed per day). If you schedule recordings the total time allowed is 5 hours. Two annoying quirks are that you can only schedule recordings if the MyFi is docked in the home cradle and you cannot listen while the unit is doing a scheduled recording (the unit must be switched off). You can listen if you manually record.
In practice, I have found that much more recording time is possible depending upon what channels you record. If you record only the music channels then you will get at least 5 hours. If, however, you record the non-music channels that are not in stereo (talk, comedy, classic radio, sports, etc) a great deal more can be recorded. For instance, it's possible to have 3 full baseball games stored on the MyFi, I also experimented and got 30 hours of heavily compressed traffic reports (though you'd never really want to do this), this however can expose another minor quirk if you're not careful.
As explained earlier, when the recording memory is full the earliest content is erased if you continue recording. You cannot specify which parts of memory you wish to delete.
Playback
Pressing the "mode" button switches you from live listening to the MyFi memory mode. Depending upon how much you have stored, you may have to wait as long as a minute while the MyFi is indexing. The screen will then look somewhat like it does in live mode, showing the channel you recorded and the song title, with an indicator showing how far you are in the memory buffer. You move through the buffer by using the thumbwheel or the left/right keys. You cannot fast forward or rewind through content like you would a tape recorder, the content is cut into "blocks" corresponding to points whenever the display changes. This can be whenever a new song starts, or say if you were listening to baseball, for each out or change in the score. Some talk-in shows change the screen every 10 seconds or so to show a call-in number and the host's name, and I've encountered times when there are just too many "blocks" for the MyFi to handle, the indicator will not register properly and the last content recorded cannot be accessed via the thumbwheel or left/right arrows, you must listen through the entire buffer. The same thing will happen if you try to record too much of the traffic/weather channels. There is no harm done, you can just record high quality music or reset the buffer to recover from it.
Despite these misgivings, I do like this feature, as there are many places in my area where a signal is not available or a show is on at a time I'm not awake. There is no difference in sound quality between live and MyFi modes. And right now the MyFi is unique in this ability.
What's in the box.
Just about everything you need to operate the MyFi in almost any environment is included which explains the rather steep price versus other radios.
The MyFi unit itself.
Rechargeable lithium battery.
Earbud style headphones.
Belt clip/stand.
Clip-on antenna.
Protective case.
Remote control.
Home kit consisting of a cradle, antenna and AC power adapter.
Car kit consisting of a cradle with various mounts, magnetic mount antenna, cassette adapter and DC power adapter.
The MyFi itself is a rounded unit slightly larger and thicker than an 8mm tape cassette. The easy to read backlit display takes up most of the top half of the unit with a series of buttons below that control the various functions and a small thumbwheel is located on the right side. I found the size of the unit right for my hand.
Setup
Normally, you dock the MyFi in either the home or car cradle, which connects the charging source, the antenna and a line out for connection to an amplifier. If you do not have a line out or earphone attached, an internal FM modulator is activated which can be set to 12 different frequencies (at the lower and upper ends of the FM band). The range of the modulator is sufficient to work in my Honda with a rear window antenna and if the correct frequency is selected I can place the unit in an upstairs bedroom and be able to receive it downstairs in the kitchen. Though in the same position, I can't get reception in the bathroom adjacent to the bedroom. The car cradle has various mounts including a clip for the heater/AC outlets, though that fits my Honda, it's not really an optimum position. The problem with cars nowadays is there's little dashboard room for mounting your own equipment. The Sony PnP fit perfectly in a cubbyhole in the front of the console, no such luck with the MyFi. There are 3rd party vendors for kits to mount many types of equipment to various places on the dash, usually near the radio or heater controls you may need to avail yourself of their services.
The length of the antenna cables are long enough to stretch across a room or reach the front dashboard of a car from the trunk. A menu setting brings up an indicator so you can aim your home antenna for best reception.
The setup menus allow you to select up to 20 stocks for the scrolling display and numerous sports tickers.
For portable use, the MyFi has its own internal antenna which doesn't work as well as the car or home antennas but may be OK for you. There is also a clipon antenna which could mount on a cap which improves reception somewhat, though I find the clip to be a little flimsy. I like the belt clip which holds the unit securely and can also convert into a stand which is perfect if you want to set it next to an FM radio and listen.
The infrared remote control has good range and looks like it can duplicate all of the functions you can do through the keypad.
Operation
After unpacking the home cradle and adapter to initially charge the battery (a few hours, during which you can subscribe to the XM service via phone or internet) you are ready to play with the MyFi.
You can select the channel you want to listen to in many ways, directly through the numerical keypad, rotating the thumbwheel or using the left/right keypad to access memories or "groups" of channels. I tend not to use the memories, instead opting to directly enter channel numbers.
Pressing the "display" button changes how information is presented on the screen. You can get a title/artist display, add a stock or sports ticker or change to a large type scrolling title/artist display.
The volume seems to be loud enough to use in noisy environments, I have found though that late at night the lowest volume setting is just a little louder than I'd like it. The quality of the audio is very good, in my opinion better than the Sony PnP it replaced. You can set the Bass and Treble to your tastes in the set-up menu.
The operating time between battery charges is said to be 5 hours, I haven't been able to test whether that is the case.
Recording
Unlike the SkyFi which allows you to pause and resume playback for a short period of time, the MyFi will record (according to Delphi) up 5 hours of content for playback at a later time, you cannot pause while recording. When the recording buffer is full, the earliest content is deleted. You record in two ways, by pressing the 2go button while listening, or by setting up to 2 scheduled recordings (only 2 allowed per day). If you schedule recordings the total time allowed is 5 hours. Two annoying quirks are that you can only schedule recordings if the MyFi is docked in the home cradle and you cannot listen while the unit is doing a scheduled recording (the unit must be switched off). You can listen if you manually record.
In practice, I have found that much more recording time is possible depending upon what channels you record. If you record only the music channels then you will get at least 5 hours. If, however, you record the non-music channels that are not in stereo (talk, comedy, classic radio, sports, etc) a great deal more can be recorded. For instance, it's possible to have 3 full baseball games stored on the MyFi, I also experimented and got 30 hours of heavily compressed traffic reports (though you'd never really want to do this), this however can expose another minor quirk if you're not careful.
As explained earlier, when the recording memory is full the earliest content is erased if you continue recording. You cannot specify which parts of memory you wish to delete.
Playback
Pressing the "mode" button switches you from live listening to the MyFi memory mode. Depending upon how much you have stored, you may have to wait as long as a minute while the MyFi is indexing. The screen will then look somewhat like it does in live mode, showing the channel you recorded and the song title, with an indicator showing how far you are in the memory buffer. You move through the buffer by using the thumbwheel or the left/right keys. You cannot fast forward or rewind through content like you would a tape recorder, the content is cut into "blocks" corresponding to points whenever the display changes. This can be whenever a new song starts, or say if you were listening to baseball, for each out or change in the score. Some talk-in shows change the screen every 10 seconds or so to show a call-in number and the host's name, and I've encountered times when there are just too many "blocks" for the MyFi to handle, the indicator will not register properly and the last content recorded cannot be accessed via the thumbwheel or left/right arrows, you must listen through the entire buffer. The same thing will happen if you try to record too much of the traffic/weather channels. There is no harm done, you can just record high quality music or reset the buffer to recover from it.
Despite these misgivings, I do like this feature, as there are many places in my area where a signal is not available or a show is on at a time I'm not awake. There is no difference in sound quality between live and MyFi modes. And right now the MyFi is unique in this ability.
