Antex XM3000 Build Quality and Performance
The unit itself is a flat black - good for blending into a dark room. Unfortunately, it also has a large silver strip at the bottom of the face with buttons labeled 0-9. These are primarily for selecting presets but can also be used to enter channels (though the line configuration makes it more intuitive for presets). There is a blue backlit LED panel on the front that displays the channels selected for all three zones at the same time. Above the power button on the left there is a blue LED that never seemed to go off. The remote is small and plastic but felt good in the hand.
Set up - General
The XM-3000 has one input (from the antenna), six outputs (1 RCA pair and one TOSLink connection per channel) and a rear RS-232 control port for integration into distributed audio systems. I connected the XM-3000 to three different inputs on my receiver using a TOSLink cable from Impact Acoustics for the first zone and RCA cables from Blue Jeans Cable for Zones 2 and 3. I didn't expect to hear a difference between the two but I did want to give the unit a chance. I was hoping to catch some 5.1 XM, but that is just coming out this March and will only be available to those who own select receivers which are capable of decoding it (so far Yamaha, Pioneer, Denon and possibly one or two other companies have products that will decode it.)
The provided antenna was the typical satellite radio fare, a black square that can be tilted up or laid down flat. A provided bracket makes wall mounting a possibility and the cable is long enough (~20' ) that you could literally fish it into your attic if you had too. At first I had a hard time receiving a signal but, after finally breaking down and reading the manual, I figured out why (no, I'm not going to tell you, I have my pride after all) and setup was a breeze. Honestly, after seeing all the troubles the installer had with my Dish Network setup, I was skeptical that I would be able to receive a signal at all. But once I got the antenna set up, it seemed I could only really find one place in my room that WOULDN'T receive a signal (behind the entertainment center, where it would have been the least intrusive). As it was, I ended up setting it on top of the unit where it did just fine. I don't care what my wife says, I think the antenna looks cool. Plus, it is nice that the TriplePlay receiver only requires one for all three zones.
Once you hook the unit up, everything else is a breeze. I'm not a big fan of the number of DVD players requiring that you enable the digital out manually. Why? The XM-3000 has all outputs enabled out of the box - no manual configuration required. My beef, of course, is why only TOSLink? Why not add coaxial? I know that TOSLink cables are less susceptible to interference but coaxial cables are so much cheaper. Of course, as I say this, my Denon 3805 sports 5 optical and only 2 coaxial S/PDIF inputs so I can appreciate that typically there are more available TOSlink inputs. If I wanted to go all digital, it'd have to be TOSLink for at least one of the three connections - and that's assuming I didn't already have one position filled. Options are still nice - especially at $1999.
Setup - Features
Entering the setup menu was as easy as holding down the power button on the unit for a few seconds. From the setup menu, you can add or skip channels, engage the parental control option, display the ID numbers (needed when activating the service) and test signal strength. Adding and skipping channels was pretty straightforward and probably doesn't need much explanation. What I was most interested in were the Parental Controls and Signal Strength screens.
When setting up the unit, you first want to find it a home, then you want to find the best place to locate the antenna. As I mentioned earlier, the cord for the antenna is plenty long, but you can order extenders if you need them. The signal strength screen is nice in that it helps you calibrate exactly how strong that signal is coming in. If not, you'd never really know if you could have placed the antenna better
On an XM unit, I can't imagine NOT having parental controls. With OTA TV and radio becoming more and more racy by the day, parents are sure to want to shield their children from some of the content available. Blocking channels is simple once you set the 4 digit password (using the last 4 digits of your phone number probably won't keep your kids out for long). All you need to do is scroll through the channels either with the remote or using the controls on the unit and hit Select for each channel you want to block. Then, when that channel is selected, the unit will prompt you for a password. Nice. My only beef was that there was no "back" button, if you didn't enter the code correctly, you had to exit and start over. Of course, this also helps deter any little "safe cracker" who might be living in your house.
Performance
My first concern was checking the multi-zone capability. Was the unit really capable of doing all it said? Obviously the answer was yes. Each zone functioned just like its own tuner, completely independent of each other. Basically, it functioned like three separate tuners running off of one antenna. Subjective listening tests indicated that it made no difference if you used the RCA or TOSLink connection.
The front LCD panel seemed fairly large until you powered the unit and see that each zone was represented at all times. This was nice in that it allowed you to see what is going on in each zone but it also forced the font to be so small that from a distance (over 5 feet or so) all you could really make out was the channel number. While it is likely that the TriplePlay XM-3000 will be tucked away in a rack somewhere and rarely see the light of day, it would be nice to have the option of zooming in on a channel so that the artist and station information was visible from a distance.
But, in direct contrast to what is written above, I don't recommend ever putting this unit in front of a customer without some sort of shading. The LED power light (which is always on unless the unit is unplugged) and the screen (which is only on when the unit is on) is without a doubt the brightest I've ever seen on a piece of audio equipment. In my room, it was like a beacon cutting through the dark, guiding me home. I kept expecting to find moths circling it. Personally, I found it more than a little annoying and really wanted some sort of dimmer option for the LED and backlight.
So, I've established that the screen is too small (or too much information is on it at once) to be useful and that you really don't want the unit in front of you as you use it anyways. My next suggestion is that there should be some sort of video out. There is really no way to program this unit without sitting right in front of it. With a video out (even if it was just a composite or s-video) you could pipe it to a screen and program it from farther away. This may be moot to someone taking advantage of the RS-232 port but for those that don't, it would be a nice option.
Remote
The remote could be considered utilitarian - if it was all that useful. Since you have to be sitting within a few feet of the screen to see it, the remote usefulness really extends to allowing the installer to sit in a chair in front of the unit rather than having to kneel there. Not to mention that from six feet away, the IR sensitivity was so limited and narrow that I literally had to have the remote directly perpendicular to the unit on the same plane to get it to work. Not the most useful of remotes. Granted, it will probably be used once by the installer then replaced with something else so this doesn't really make it a deal breaker - but dang, this remote stinks.
