Anyone think XM radio sounds terrible??

[ToyotaNSaturn]

Depends on phone and your carrier's service.

With my old iPhone 3GS, traveling long distances and Internet radio was a frustrating experience as the signal was either nonexistent or would drop often.

How ever, with the 4S, only dropped twice in an 8 hour journey from Nashville to Chicago a few months ago. Amazing really. The antenna design in the 4S is vastly better. I wish I had other phones to try but I'm not going to spend all that money to find out. lol

 

[itguy08]

I've had them both and find Sirius to sound better than XM. XM has very swissshy s's and never sounded that good. Tried Sirius and with their setup it sounds better. Nowhere as good as a CD or 256k AAC from my iTunes but good enough.

 

[Colt45ws]

Originally Posted By: ToyotaNSaturn
Depends on phone and your carrier's service.

With my old iPhone 3GS, traveling long distances and Internet radio was a frustrating experience as the signal was either nonexistent or would drop often.

How ever, with the 4S, only dropped twice in an 8 hour journey from Nashville to Chicago a few months ago. Amazing really. The antenna design in the 4S is vastly better. I wish I had other phones to try but I'm not going to spend all that money to find out. lol

Has full signal! I can stand in one spot and have it repeatedly drop and rebuffer. Just no bandwidth. Ive tested it before when it got bad just trying to surf on my phone and got back 13/150kbps. Thankfully most of the time it is better than that but till very bursty and even a large 30 second buffer does not help all that much.

 

[Spazdog]

I'm still using the same free Sirius Stratus receiver I got over 5 years ago through an FM repeater.

No, it's not as good as HD radio, but I tried to go back to commercial terrestrial radio and I just can't do it.

 

[sleddriver]

Originally Posted By: dailydriver
I don't know about XM (or any other satellite system), but the downloaded songs on my iPod sound downright horrible as compared to ANY actual CD I play on my car stereo (Alpine 9886 head unit, Alpine KTP-445U in line, 4x45 watt RMS amp, and 4 Focal PC165 speakers), and not even like music when compared to a good, well engineered (NOT compressed too badly) HDCD disc.

Why I will NEVER even bother with MP3 ONLY type head units even though the current texting generation swears by this tech.

Focals in a car...what a rare combination. Sounds like a great system. I have Dynaudios.

I agree on MP3s vs CD's. So much is missing. It all depends on what you get used to AND what you play it back on. It's a lousy source for high-resolution, low-distorsion drivers. I never got rid of my CD collection (nor the LP's). The 'current texting generation' is clueless.

I convert audiobooks to mp3 to save space.

As for sat. radio....never used it. Sounds like it's really gone downhill though (pun intented).

 

[pzev]

XM is great for what it is. The nicer the audio system you have, the more apt you are to notice the poor quality. When my focus had a stock stereo, XM sounded fine to my ears. After I put in a completely custom system using kick-panels with a 3 way component setup, XM sounded really bad. After the Serious XM Merger, it sounds even worse.
Do I still pay for it? Yes, because terrestrial radio is terrible. I have a large music collection at home, but its not always convenient to update my playlists, so XM fills a need. In the near future however, I'd imagine an internet radio stream on a good 4g connection would truncate the need for Satellite radio in most places, however data plan restrictions and coverage issues will still keep Sat radio as a viable option, at least for me.

 

[eljefino]

Originally Posted By: ToyotaNSaturn


My solution to the awful, FCC-mandated bandwidth-limited music?



I think XM is up against an engineering challenge and not an FCC one. IMO it's a minor miracle you can receive satellite radio at all with a non-directional antenna. XMs "suits" are just jerking around the engineers by trying to cram more channels in until someone complains. Powering those satellites must be up there in challenges. Look at the skies with a spectrum analzyer: XM blows directv out of the water, which is an order again of magnitude stronger than C/Ku band.

 

[SwampSurvivor]

Originally Posted By: daddi
Originally Posted By: Miller88
It's always sounded like low end streaming internet radio.


Exactly....Thats what I'm talking about.


That's not the reason I didn't renew. First, I didn't have the money to spare. Earlier this year, they gave a one month trial ... I was a bit surprised to hear commercials. I'm not going to pay monthly for radio with commercials.

 

[dailydriver]

Originally Posted By: sleddriver
Originally Posted By: dailydriver
I don't know about XM (or any other satellite system), but the downloaded songs on my iPod sound downright horrible as compared to ANY actual CD I play on my car stereo (Alpine 9886 head unit, Alpine KTP-445U in line, 4x45 watt RMS amp, and 4 Focal PC165 speakers), and not even like music when compared to a good, well engineered (NOT compressed too badly) HDCD disc.

Why I will NEVER even bother with MP3 ONLY type head units even though the current texting generation swears by this tech.

Focals in a car...what a rare combination. Sounds like a great system. I have Dynaudios.

I agree on MP3s vs CD's. So much is missing. It all depends on what you get used to AND what you play it back on. It's a lousy source for high-resolution, low-distorsion drivers. I never got rid of my CD collection (nor the LP's). The 'current texting generation' is clueless.

I convert audiobooks to mp3 to save space.

As for sat. radio....never used it. Sounds like it's really gone downhill though (pun intented).


Yes, it DOES sound pretty good, especially with the HDCDs as mentioned.
It is also VERY lightweight (and compact, that amp is about the size of two cig packs end to end, not too much heavier than those, and fits in the dash behind the head unit), which was a requirement of mine.
It is MUCH lighter than the OEM/stock 'system' it replaced, besides there being NO comparison in sound.

I also still have ALL of my LP albums, and my Systemdek turntable, but I eventually want to upgrade to a Linn or better.

These kids who have NEVER heard a quality LP played on a GREAT turntable/arm/cartridge combo through a top line 2 channel stereo (or even a high powered mono) system don't know what they are missing, despite the few, occasional, pops, and crackles.

 

[kkreit01]

I've had OE Sirius in 5 vehicles now. It sounded horrible in all -- even my THXII Lincoln system (where everything else sounds phenomenal). I would never pay a dime for it. FM sounds 10x better. Sat. sound is so digitized and muffled.

 

[Racerjk]

My wife's G8 has an awesome stereo IMO. It's the best one I've ever had,and certainly the best factory system I've personally experienced. The previous owner had an XM sub. that I enjoyed until it ran out,but I didn't think the sound quality was very good either.

I hate digital downloads unless it's lossless or something like a high quality cd or vinyl rip. I'm not a big fan of the Ipad or the Iphone either.

 

[SnPb]

Here is an NAB Document that describes some of the technical characteristics of XM and Sirius pre-merger.

And here is a link to a Boeing website that describes the XM Satellites.

 

[JustinH]

Rented a car with XM last week. I was so happy to have 100+ Channels of ANYTHING in the middle of the Nevada desert with no FM reception in sight.

I too was suprised to hear tons of commercials for a pay service.

I had Sirius about 5 years ago. My buddy added me as an extra user of his account, so I paid like 8 bucks a month, and I prepaid him for a year.

For 8 bucks a month Sirius is absolutely worth it. I went online to look at current prices, nearing 20 bucks per month for basic service, plus more for extras.

20 bucks a month is not worth paying unless I am a long haul trucker, which I am not.

 

[Garak]

I know things are probably a bit different in Canada, since we don't get some channels you guys get and vice versa. The commercials thing is kind of strange. Some channels get a few commercials (i.e. at the top and bottom of the hour). Others get none. I'm sure there are those that get huge amounts. Would I be correct in guessing talk radio on the satellite gets a lot of commercials down south? I know up here, "normal" talk radio must be half commercials (other than CBC), so I avoid it like the plague.

For Sirius XM up here, I'm paying around $9 a month. For something like $500, I can get a lifetime subscription. I don't know. I'm on the fence about keeping with it or kicking it. The sound quality, for the most part, is pretty mediocre. However, there is a lot of content that wouldn't otherwise have a prayer of getting any airtime in a small market like this one.

 

[JetStar]

I had free satellite radio for 3Mo when I bought my 2008 Mustang GT (shaker 500). The system was OK for radio and CD's, but the satellite radio sounded bad. Not sure if it was the signal, or the reciever. Sounded like it was comming through a cardboard tube. I never renewed.

 

[Cujet]

As mentioned above, the low bit rate hampers sound quality. But most people don't understand how much material is lost. The mid range frequencies are highly compressed and distorted. The very high frequencies are simply not there.

They don't advertise the exact bit rates per channel, but its clear some channels are better than others.

I cand stand the sound of either XM or Sirius radio. Instead of a bell clear ring, I hear a PZzzttt. And that annoys me.

 

[Quattro Pete]

It's really a shame what they did - cramming so many channels into such a limited bandwidth. If it was me, I'd choose fewer channels but at higher sound quality, but maybe they did extensive market studies that proved otherwise?

What the XM codec uses is SBR (spectral band replication) - kind of a trickery to reconstruct higher frequencies which aren't there based on what's happening in low and mid frequencies. Still, it's far from perfect. And some receivers can't even process the SBR information resulting in audio that sounds even more dull.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectral_band_replication