How much better is the polk refrence tuner?
- Thread starter Rickman
- Start date
My Polk sounds lousy. It sounds better if you take its digital output and send it to a good DAC, but still nothing like the "CD Quality" that was claimed. It saving grace is that it has the digital outputs, so you get an output signal that you can work with.
Hope this helps!
Hope this helps!
No, the skyfi might sound worse, I'm just saying the Polk doesn't sound good. I guess I'm more likely griping about XM's sound in general, because I'm told the Polk is about as good as it gets. I just wasn't at all impressed.
The sound difference between the XM Skyfi2 and the Polk is probably no where near the difference between vinyl/Cds and any XM receiver. If you are determined to get one or the other and you only want to use it at home, I would get the Polk. It is supposed to be the best sound quality available on any of their stand alone units. If you are picky about sound, and I am guessing you are, you probably still will not be very happy.
doug s.
Super Member
so, you mean i should talk my buddy into getting the polk, so when i go over to his house i don't get the headache i now get when he's playing the xm as background music on his system? yup, after a half hour, i inwariably get a headache, even when it's only background music. it is completely unlistenable in the "sweet spot".uofmtiger said:
doug s.
Just to be fair, there are many different setups that your friend could be using. Directv has XM compressed one way, the internet compresses it differently, and finally, the regular receivers do it another way. If your friend is playing back XM via the internet on a main system and is not using their top internet quality, it sounds pretty awful.
My friend has the Polk XM system and he has had it on in the background, but I have never experienced a headache. YMMV
dcottrell6
New Member
I've had both in my system and I think the Polk sounds better.
I have it hooked up through the analog outputs which use the Burr-Brown DAC's which I thought were one of the best around (according to some of the reviews I've read)
I don't think the price is out of line either. Just my 2 cents.
I have it hooked up through the analog outputs which use the Burr-Brown DAC's which I thought were one of the best around (according to some of the reviews I've read)
I don't think the price is out of line either. Just my 2 cents.
doug s.
Super Member
my friend has a standard xm receiver connected directly to his rig, w/a tube buffer stage in between it & his preamp. while the tube buffer stage somewhat ameliorated the truly nasty noise he was getting before, making it somewhat more tolerable as a background music set-up, it is still completely unlistenable as a main music source. perhaps the polk, w/a quality outboard dac would be worth a shot.uofmtiger said:
ymmv,
doug s.
