Community/SoapBox

Try running a digital ouput from an XM tuner (Polk for instance) into a really good DAC.  I use a Benchmark Media Systems DAC.  Makes quite a difference in sound. Close to CD quality ...depending on the channel.

I have a Xact XTR sirius PnP tuner.  I have heard several sirius tuners via FM modulator and the audio out headphone jack.  My old Xact tuner sounds better over FM or line out than any new “sirius” tuner.  The quality varies depending on the receiver used.  Id like to try the sirius tuners with the digital out and and a homebrew DAC!

THANK GOD PEOPLE ARE FINALLY saying something about the abysmal and thin sound quality of satellite radio.  It sounds like AM radio without the static, but with garbled digital distortion thrown in.

I love music and love the idea of satellite *radio*.

But with the sound quality so disappointly poor, I have had to let my subscription go until they dedicate more bandwith to music, stop compressing the stream so much, and stop squeezing all of the life and body out music.

Geez.......and I thought I was the only one who thought that satellite radio sounded like crap. For those who think that satellite radio and MP3s are the wave of the future, I can only feel pity for you - you are settling for lousy sound.

I’d sooner buy a used Corvair than listen to that junk.

Roberta

Ever since they added Canada channels and some video service, it’s EVEN WORSE.
They really need to do something about it. 

It’s a wonderful idea who’s time has come, with fantastic content and programming, RUINED by cheap technology.

It’s like taking a picture of a beautiful scene with a cell phone camera.  Sure you can make out what’s there, but the color is way off and the beautiful details just can’t be seen.

i have three sirius subsciptions, I really like the programing but the sound quality does suck! that tinny almost liike a cell phone sound blows and that waterfall or icesicles dropping noise in the quite parts of songs drives me nuts! (I notice its not there when listening to howard,he must get a lot of bandwith!)there is a big however here, compared to fm, satalites sound quality is better when you are mobile as there is know stattic or chnnels fadding out and when you have it loud you dont seem to notice the pittfalls as much. when you are not mobile and have a well tuned fm station there sound quality is better for sure and there is hope for hd radio! I recently purchased a new alpine head unit for my car 1/08 and tried to give fm a chance again but the progaming still sucks!! and iam spoiled by no commercials,so i went sirrius.I have noticed that i dont get as many signal drop outs as whith my two older units and the sound quality is slightly better!  iam interested to test the hd radio but its another 250 bucks to hook it up!!  if the sound quality is supperior to sattelites (which i bet IT will) I will cough it up.This will be a good chance for ground based radio to even the score with satellite but they will have to improve progamming hugely (utilise the side channels efectively) and limit the commercials and then I might come back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think too many people are confused and think that when we talk about poor sound quality, we’re referring to the huge problem of the cheaply made and underpowered FM modulators used to get the signal to the speakers using your car radio.
When the transmitters were stronger, you could easily move them when you changed cars.  Now you have to run a wire through the whole car and put it close to your antenna and the signal still doesn’t capture the FM receiver.
But when you plug the satellite radio into an auxiliary input and have a clean line in, you really notice that the incoming signal from the satellites is overly compressed and digitized.  Not good for music at all.  I think XM is experimenting with some high bitrate HD channels, though.  It’s a good start, so let’s hope Sirius gets a clue and does something to head in a better direction.  I find myself just listening to talk because it’s pretty frustrating to hear the music you love sound like it’s coming through an AM radio on your expensive sound system.  I can’t give up the subscription, though.  Broadcast radio is just not an option anymore.

Ditto!

Just wasted $300 on a Sirius system installation. Just spent over $4000 on my Alpine sound system. Sirius makes my Alpine/Rockford Fosgate sound like crap! I’m pissed! Will terminate my subscription at the end of the month!

My best friend and his wife subscribe to directTV which include the XM radio channels (not all the channels) with their subscription.  Whenever they have a party, they crank the music on their TV. They have a pretty big HD TV set and It sounds pretty good.  I was impressed with the variety of XM’s programing. I’m a mobile and nightclub DJ. I listen to the radio everyday on the way to work (which takes me about an hour) so I can keep up with the new tunes.  I then play my music 5 hours, 5 days a week! By the end of the night on my way home from work, I want to listen to something different! So I figured I can get an XM radio for my hour drive home from work to break the monotony. I purchased an audiovox xpress car kit which included everything I needed plus a cassette adapter. My 2000 Acura TL has a good sounding Bose system in it. I hooked up the XM radio with the cassette adapter and right away I noticed the degrade of music quality from FM radio. I wanted to see if they gave me a cheap cassette adapter so I pluged it into my ipod. The ipod sounds great! So I stumbled on to this site by trying to see if anyone else had the same bad quality compressed sound or if my audiovox unit had a bad quality DAC in it. I want to thank everyone for their posts. I now know what the answer is. AM sounding news, sports, entertainment & talk radio broadcasts. Compressed, lifeless music broadcasting. It sounds like a 96 kbps mp3 with not much of a stereo image.  What’s even more anoying is that every station has a different EQ setting.  So everytime I change the channel I have to adjust my bass and treble!  I want to remind everyone out there that just because something is digital, it doesn’t mean it is better! Here is the order of sound quality in my car from better to worse. CD, ipod, cassette, FM, XM. Once again XM on my friends satellite tv sounds a lot better then what I am receiving. So to answer Dallas’s post on 3/01, I believe that XM is broadcasting a higher quality faster bit rate on the satellite directTV feed then what they are giving to the rest of us. I hope more people get involved and try to contact XM to improve their bitrate and audio quality broadcasts.

hi to everybody!i got the same problem as all of you!sound quality of XM sucks!my fm radio plays much better than Delphi XM unit.i tried different ways to connect it to car stereo,the best is with AUX jack cable.but with those fm transmitters quality is unacceptable!but i don’t think that this is a problem,cause even when you listen xm radio online you get the same ###### quality!i really like variety of stations,but considering disconnecting from it.