[wowser]

Just finished my Sirius "stealth" install. Everything went great and now i'm beginning to go through the channels. One thing though is that the quality of satellite radio isn't what I thought it would be. To me, the quality sounds like 128kbps mp3 at best. It seems that the music is lacking substance.

Any one else feel this way (or is this how it should be)?

 

[psiclne]

I cant tell any difference from FM/AM to Sirius - as far as quality is concerned. Although last night when I was in Huntington Beach it started cutting in & out, and I was on Beach blvd.....which I thought was odd since there wasnt any tall buildings or trees in the way?

 

[Silver Bullet]

One thing though is that the quality of satellite radio isn't what I thought it would be. To me, the quality sounds like 128kbps mp3 at best. It seems that the music is lacking substance.

The value of Satellite radio is the number of channels and everywhere coverage, not superior sound quality. Just like normal terrestrial broadcasting, satellite has limited bandwidth. FM uses wider bandwidth with less compression of the signal than AM, thus higher quality and stereo signal. Although some AM stations now broadcast in stereo by modulating the signal, they can't sound as good as FM. My guess is that satellite broadcasters can't afford the bandwidth necessary to give you so many channels at an affordable price that is even as good as FM. Remember they're buying very expensive bandwidth on satellites and giving you 100 plus channels. Really a bargin for $10 per month. Maybe someday we'll have the equivelant of HD audio from satellite, but be prepared to pay big $$$.

The best possible source for high quality sound in your car stereo for now is your CD player, not satellite, not MP3, not FM. As a bit of an old timer audiofile, I'm constantly shagrined by my kids and their generation who think that MP3 (at any bit rate) sounds good. :roll: Give me a good analog signal path through tube amplifiers and reference monitor speakers any day. Of course that's not going to happen in your car. 8)

 

[kcrudup]

Actually the only thing I ever did like about Sirius was the sound quality- it's between CDs and FM in my opinion. Of course, that was when the DJs weren't jabbering on on top of and between songs, that is.

Sirius also has a superior satellite setup, where they have three sats in constant orbit, as opposed to a geostationary orbit like XMs 2.5 sats (one of the three's gonna replace a failing second sat):

Of course, this is better for moving vehicles like cars, but at the same time there's going to be times you're not going to get a strong signal. When the Sirius sat that's not in the CONUS orbit, it's turned off and recharging its batteries at the same time. I hear Sirius' CODECs are better than XMs, as well.

Between the technical superiority and the lack of issues with the Infiniti Clarion satellite recievers (the Sirius units don't have the 10 character display limitation nor the "loading 'till restart" issues of the XM recievers), it's a nice setup- too bad Sirius programming bites, and I can't wait to get rid of it!

 

[FX-1004]

cool~ that map is very interesting..

 

[wowser]

I prefer quality over quantity, so if they ever decided to cut the number of channels and bump up the quality, i would go for it. How many hip-hop, jazz, country stations do you need? They should just expand the playlists and consolidate some of the channels.

 

[bradical]

sat radio is compressed like your iPOD. so there is a certain lack of DEPTH to the music. FM had more depth but also a lot more static and crap liek that so overall its going to rate lower on the big scale of things. your sat radio and iPOD are not going to beat your good old CD player for sound quality. if you have an ear for sound, it is easy to pick this up, but most folks dont know any better or care when they do

sirius does have better satellite system than XM though as kenny has stated. ........but if you hate the programming, then it still sucks

i personally like sirius (sat radio) for the overall package it delivers.

 

[Silver Bullet]

Great map Kenny, thanks for posting it. Very interesting. 8)