XM Satellite Radio: First Impressions

Kamakiri

The New Dynamic
As some of you may know, I got this from the wife for a Christmas present :D. The model I got is the Delphi SkyFi, shown below. It's about the size of a large pager, and comes with a remote. You must purchase either a home install kit (consisting of a stand, antenna, cables, and power supply), or an in-car kit. If you have both kits, you can move it from home to car simply by taking out of one holder and popping it into another. Pretty neat!

The XM service comes with 60 music channels, and 40 news/talk/sports channels for only 9.99 a month. The comedy channels are hilarious! There is a music channel for every taste that you can imagine, from trance to Latin, from musical soundtracks to heavy metal, it's all there.

The best part of the home installation is that you only have to point the antenna out a window....a small square device, no alignment necessary as with DirecTV. Hooking it up took a total of a minute.

Now, for the sound.....

I hooked it up to my Fisher 500C and Altec A7 VOTs, and thought the sound quality was pretty impressive, but then did a simple A/B with my Rega CD player. All I can say is that with XM on that particular system, there's something missing. Highs are muted, bass isn't well defined, almost as if the music were somehow compressed.....almost like hooking the inputs of a Fisher to a cheap cassette player.....or maybe a kid's record player with a cheap sapphire needle. The music was there, for sure, very clear reception, but the feeling was gone. That's the best way to describe it.

I'm going to try it out on some of my SS gear, hoping that it will be more forgiving, which I'll do this weekend. The news/talk and comedy channels make this unit well worth the price of admission, and this would be outstanding in the car, especially on long trips, but thus far it doesn't seem to be a medium up to par with what we expect out of vinyl and CD on our systems. More to come.
 
Tim

One of my DXer buddies in Southern Ontario, who incidently is an audio/video electronics transmission engineer for a communications firm, told me the total frequency range for digital cable/satelite FM/music broadcast is only about 9800 cps. I suspect that this and other emerging digital broadcast technologies will be little different. He explained that they can widen the frequency range in broadcast but don't for several reasons. Unless the general consumer ( most are ignorant on the situation ) demands an improvement, he said there likely will be little change.

I realize that you have broadened AK's audio audience ( of which I have no compalints ), but it was AU/AK that enlightened me to quality musical broadcast/reproduction.

A convert of sorts. kinda....yestertech, pure analog, anti-digital revolutionist to a degree because where it's going not what it could be.
 
Well, after having lived with XM for about 3 weeks, and the first improvement was to switch it to the 9090db + Infinity Qb's. Sound is much better, I think the 9090 is far more forgiving than the Fisher. Lately I've been getting into electronica/trance (if it's well done) because the channel is there, and it sounds damn good! Actually, I can't really complain heavily about any of the channels audio quality too much, I think that a lot of it had to do with the system I ran it on. Classical to me on XM still seems a little flat, but the choices of music more than make up for the difference. I have noticed that each channel varies in audio quality, so depending on your musical tastes and system, it may or may not work well for you.

No, it's still not quite vinyl or CD quality, but I'm much happier with it now than I was.
 
the music IS compressed, I think something like 256 as a bit rate

Sirrus uses 346 as a bit rate or something, and all stations are commercial-free, that's why I would choose Sirrus over XM

still very nice though, I am still stuck with FM :D
 
I would like to try out Sirrus or something soon, but there really isn't a cheap and nice unit for the house

about 75%+ os my listening to music, is indeed the FM
 
Talk about loss of focus. Time to start on that Blaupunkt I got sitting upstairs. Guess I'll just have to build a yagi:) Oh yeah, and take down my 40m inverted vee and put up a real dipole:D
I will only listen to FM though tubes dammit:cool:
md
 
Kam- What is your opinion of XM

now that you've had several months to listen?

I've been listening to XM since November as background music at work, and I must say it is WAY better than the local FM broadcasts or digital cable elevator crap. Listen mostly to XM Pops, followed by Decades 7 and 8.

Actually find the quality more than acceptable, have been running it through the KR-9600. Love the lack of noise.

I do have one complaint- every few minutes, the sound stops for a second or so, then comes back. Do you have this problem in your location, or is it just here?

Another complaint- sometimes, 100 channels and nothing to hear:p:
 
Still liking it, but......

Now that I have the XM in my basement with my system, the reception sucks :mad: . One thing that the folks at XM really need to do is produce a good outdoor antenna. Who know, they might and I might not know it :)

I listen to Comedy 150, the 80s, Watercolors, Fine Tuning, Real Jazz, The Move, BPM, and Top Tracks mostly.

When the reception down here gets bad through the basement window and it does stop for a second, I just shut it off. That's a major annoyance!
 
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