applesauce
New Member
Those of you who are also XM Radio subscribers may or may not have been aware of the recent audio processing upgrade implemented at XM Radio's transmission facility in Washington D.C.
While ostensibly a technology improvement, the primary reason for the upgrade may be directed toward appeasing the seemingly unending customer complaints related to audio quality. This topic often makes its appearance as XM SQ or XM Signal Quality, in the various online discussion (and bashing) groups.
XM originally started broadcasting using Telos Systems Omnia-3 audio processing equipment. The Telos equipment was eventually superceded with processing gear designed and developed by Neural Audio. Audio processing is used to compress and limit the dynamic range of program material prior to CT-AAC encoding.
Some XM listeners may recall that the Neural equipment upgrade back then was attended with with much hoopla and fanfare. We were led to believe that the Neural stuff was the ne plus ultra of codec enhancing audio processing and was going to do wonders. Well ... the jury was always out on that one and it often seemed like the Neural equipment made things worse, rather than better! Compounding the problem was XM's never ending parameter tweaking of the processing compression and equalization settings.
On Sat. Aug. 4 and Sun. Aug. 5, newly installed Neural processing equipment was turned-up on select music channels. No changes to the CT-AAC encoding equipment were said to have been made. Noteworthy with the upgrade, is improved audio clarity. We can now clearly hear what CT-AAC encoding really sounds like! Although the equipment is new in a chronological sense, it many aspects it sounds more like traditional processing gear, similar to the Optimod 6200 processing that Sirius has been using with their encoding apparatus.
While ostensibly a technology improvement, the primary reason for the upgrade may be directed toward appeasing the seemingly unending customer complaints related to audio quality. This topic often makes its appearance as XM SQ or XM Signal Quality, in the various online discussion (and bashing) groups.
XM originally started broadcasting using Telos Systems Omnia-3 audio processing equipment. The Telos equipment was eventually superceded with processing gear designed and developed by Neural Audio. Audio processing is used to compress and limit the dynamic range of program material prior to CT-AAC encoding.
Some XM listeners may recall that the Neural equipment upgrade back then was attended with with much hoopla and fanfare. We were led to believe that the Neural stuff was the ne plus ultra of codec enhancing audio processing and was going to do wonders. Well ... the jury was always out on that one and it often seemed like the Neural equipment made things worse, rather than better! Compounding the problem was XM's never ending parameter tweaking of the processing compression and equalization settings.
On Sat. Aug. 4 and Sun. Aug. 5, newly installed Neural processing equipment was turned-up on select music channels. No changes to the CT-AAC encoding equipment were said to have been made. Noteworthy with the upgrade, is improved audio clarity. We can now clearly hear what CT-AAC encoding really sounds like! Although the equipment is new in a chronological sense, it many aspects it sounds more like traditional processing gear, similar to the Optimod 6200 processing that Sirius has been using with their encoding apparatus.
