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Subscription Satellite Fidelity

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Bobby D.

Active Member
This topic has probably been done to death, but I'd like to get the latest opinions. (I'm thinking of adding satelite radio to my system.)

First, I retired 3 years ago from a large OEM car radio manufacturer. I had years of experience with both XM and Sirius receivers. At the time I retired my feelings about the fidelity of XM was fairly good. Sirius, on the other hand, was poor. Sirius had some kind of reverb processing going on that drove me crazy. (I think I'm allergic to reverb. :grumpy:) I imagine the average "Joe" likes the sound of reverb and that's why Sirius uses it. Now that XM and Sirius have merged, I'm afraid that XM may have caught the "reverb virus" from Sirius.

So what does the forum think of satellite radio, especially with regards to my nemesis "reverb"?

Bobby Dipole
 
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Hmmm; I guess I never listened closely enough to hear the reverb. It came standard in both my new cars but I didn't bother to renew my subscription on either one. I couldn't hear the reverb but I sure could hear the same songs being played at almost the same time every single day.
 
I have had XM in my vehicle for six+ years or so. IIRC, I think that the fidelity was better in the early days. Now it is so compressed that it is hard to listen to. It is frequently so harsh that I switch to FM or CDs. If they don't improve their audio quality they will continue to loose subscribers. That and the ability to access mobile data reliably so that Pandora and similar internet based streaming audio programming will surely kill XM / Sirius if they don't. I would much rather have have the quantity of stations with better fidelity than the quantity of unlistenable stations that we now have. As much as I like the convenience of XM, I am not sure that I will be renewing my 3 subscriptions. I never listen at home anymore. A subscription to much higher fidelity Pandora killed that.
 
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I listen to the Grateful Dead channel fairly often in my car. It sounds OK (i.e., the program source material isn't rate limiting in the reproduction chain of my car's radio). It is - barely - worth the subscription price to me. FWIW (just as a point of reference), I won't pay to watch TV.
 
I had XM for a pretty good while before the Sirius/XM merger.

It seems to me that the bass response has been somewhat improved lately.
 
My Focus came with a pre-paid Sirius subscription. When it expired they wanted (I felt) too much money. After a few phone calls to me, they finally went from $12 a month down to $4.50 a month for the same service. It's worth that to me, but no way would I pay more considering the low bitrate fidelity they offer.
 
Have a couple cars that came with XM for a couple months, but didn't care to renew it. My Dish network TV package includes several of the Sirius channels, and listen to it on my home office computer all the time. It's definitely some sort of MP3 compression, and not using it on my main system. Gotta say, for the way I'm using it in the background, it's pretty nice. Would I pay extra for it, no. Another mention. When I did have XM, no reception in the garage, as sometimes like to tinker out there with a little music.
 
I have a bunch of Sirius radios. Mostly I listen to Howard Stern and CNBC (nice combination, don't you think?). I'm not a fan of their music mixes. I've yet to find one station I can listen to for an extended period of time. When I'm at home, I never listen to it. Always Pandora and, lately, Spotify.
 
My parents have it and I don't think it sounds that good. Though their car radios aren't that great either. There's no dubstep station :tears:. Though the music choice is pretty good otherwise I suppose.
 
They seem to allocate bandwidth in real time. I don't know if they actually do or not, but it seems they put more bandwidth towards the more popular stations. I would say that an overall average is equivalent to around 112kbps MP3 files. But that is just my opinion.
 
computeruler said:
My parents have it and I don't think it sounds that good. Though their car radios aren't that great either. There's no dubstep station :tears:. Though the music choice is pretty good otherwise I suppose.
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I find Sirius "the boneyard" the compression level veries depending on the song KISS is VERY bad / AC/DC and other "newer" stuff usually fares better but the MOOD is RUINED with one VERY LOW quality song + high sound floor ..... NOT BAD for in the car BUT "Radio Time" / BBC I PLAYER INTERNATIONAL on an Android phone sounds better + offers WAY wider music selection
 
Celt said:
My Focus came with a pre-paid Sirius subscription. When it expired they wanted (I felt) too much money. After a few phone calls to me, they finally went from $12 a month down to $4.50 a month for the same service. It's worth that to me, but no way would I pay more considering the low bitrate fidelity they offer.
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I heard a very similar story from the salesman that sold us our Honda last week, that will be my plan.

And the fidelity on Lady Gaga's performance on the Howard Stern show was quite good for satellite.
 
XM has it's place, but just not paying anymore monthly service fees than already. My cell phone service plan's a real stripper, but still makes calls. My dad likes XM in his car. Although retired, not driving much, he still keeps renewing it. Nothing wrong with treating yourself, if thats what you want for a few bucks.
 
Well, I've had XM since before the merger, and I still have it. My two cents...

There is an enormous difference in fidelity between the music channels and the talk/sports channels. The talk channels are highly compressed, with that distinct, squawky "computer voice" sound to it. The music channels are much, much better. Frankly, I think they're just fine. Do they sound as good as my main system at home? No. But then, I can't fit two floorstanding speakers in the front seats of my car.

An important point that I rarely see mentioned...I have a very nice sound system in my car. I would imagine that could make a huge difference in your opinions about the quality of XM/Sirius music channels.

And, the variety of music that's available is pretty darn good. No matter what you like, as long as it's not completely obscure, they've got it.

You've got music in your car no matter where you are, even in the middle of nowhere where there is no FM reception.

Otoh, my car doesn't have an Aux In jack. If it did, all the music on my iPod, plus Pandora+ on my cell, might persuade me that I could get along without XM.
 
I have a decent sound system in my Beetle - it's the 'Monsoon' higher end stock.

I also have Sirius, both in the car and thru' the interwebs.

It's fine for talk - I listen to POTUS a lot - and for, specifically, the Bruce Springsteen channel. Why? Because the channel plays a lot of relatively lo-fi concert recordings, which means you listen *through* the obvious shortcomings to get to the music, just as you do with a bootleg.

The jazz channel, which is pretty well programmed, is often unlistenable. It's just too compressed, and what I hear is the sibilance, especially in the cymbals, which are plentiful in jazz.

Other channels are similar, and the more the music allows for close listening, the unhappier you're gonna be.

My verdict is: fine for cars, marginal for everything else.

s.
 
I love XM- as it gives you a change to listen to a wide variety of music at a fairly low cost-my 3 year old twins love it!.
I also use it as a buying guide.
DO yourself and find a used Polk XM, or Sirrus reference receiver, makes a noticable difference over the smaller radios. You can actually get a smooth response nice wide soundstage with good program material. Nothing like a good LP, or CD, but very listenable. The better quality Burr Brown DAC's actually do make a difference.
Typical XM interface with channel selection etc-and the display is a bit hard to read from a distance- but I have hooked mine up to the TV-so it's easier to read your selections etc
I agree quality over the channels varies-but the Polk will let you take advantage of the better quality ones.
 
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