Why does Sirius satellite radio sound so terrible?

1 hour of music used to take up 15 dvr minutes, then around 2008 I noticed that 1 hour of music took up 8 minutes. When I hook up the Dish receiver to the surround stereo, it sounds similar to a 96 kb mp3.

 

I do too. Anyone know of a good streaming station that plays 80s post punk?

 

The playlists are pathetic.

 

I feel cheated. I thought the whole concept was commercial radio sucked because of limited playlists and commercials. Still, commercial radio still had its adherents, so I expected Sirius/XM to capture the silent majority who wanted variety and no commercials. They got the no commercials right, but good god, they still treat the playlists like commercial radio. And they must subscribe to the Rolling Stone rules of acceptability because every freaking genre gets its own, or in some cases, multiple channels except for Prog. Still treated like ****. Once Howard Stern retires I'm gone; I can listen to ****ty playlists and news for free.

 

Even their special tribute channels have extremely narrow playlists. The current Prince channel and the earlier Yacht Rock channel repeat(ed) songs and even blocks of songs much too often.

 

Most people do want narrow playlists, we who want true variety are the minority and are vocal about it.

 

The wife had it almost from the day it launched and we only recently got rid of the service because the new Escape she got was not very satellite radio friendly. The base stereo didn't have it built in or even as an option and the only other option was the dreaded FM transmitter hook up. She misses it, but I agree that the sound quality was not good at all and it also seems like the last few years XM was much more prone to dropping the signal than it used to be. On top of that I was a bit PO'ed after replacing the original XM system in her last car that XM charged us a $20 (I think) activation fee. Nice way to treat a 14 year customer. I'll also add that my wife's taste in music isn't all that adventurous, she pretty much kept it on Classic Rewind and Classic Vinyl, so we just got an Ipod and I loaded that up with pretty much anything you'd hear on those channels and with much better sound quality.

 

The most popular satellite radio stations actually are those with the commercial radio playlists while "Deep Tracks" isn't very popular and neither are the Outlaw Country and Willie's Roadhouse channels. The most popular country station on SiriusXM is The Highway and you can hear much of what that station plays on any commercial country radio station.

 

I wouldn't be so quick to discount the satellite delivery method. That's one of their biggest advantages. There are vast parts of the Unites States that are still inconsistently served with reliable, fast cellular data, and even where coverage is good, there are limits to the available bandwidth that aren't easily resolved.

So yes, the sound does suck pretty bad, but some of the programming is actually quite good, and if you're driving hundreds of miles to get somewhere, it's very nice to have. I do miss the early days of XM, though. The playlists on the decades and rock channels were SO much deeper.

 

Unfortunately, it led to slicing their 4MB of signal into hundreds of pieces. If a theoretical competitor cut it down to 40 music channels at 100kbps/channel would it do better or worse?

 

I am a stockholder and went to the annual meeting in NYC in May.
They are working towards merging the technology of XM and Sirius. Once they do that, it will be able to hold 400 channels with better sound quality.
The inventor was on Howard Stern and said XM and sirius divided the spectrum in half which obviously causes problems.
They said at least 5 years.
Truth be told, its tough to turn over technology in the car. Car companies are very slow.

 

5 more years of crappy sound? Someone call me when it improves!

 

I've been recently feeling like BwanaBob above.....i mostly listen to Howard Stern, Underground Garage, 40s Junction and others, but you folks are right, some of the playlists are pretty closed....i love the Underground Garage, but so much is the same Kinks, Animals, etc, even the same Big Star and other power pop and garage stuff.....i mean, yeah, people like to hear their faves, I get it, but i too always figured because satellite was a pay format, things would be way looser...that said, i DO hear things that are unexpected, which is always great, but when Howard is done, i got some thinkin' to do!!!!!

 

Howard Stern and More: Why Warren Buffett Bought Stock in Sirius XM

"Aside from the advantage original content brings, Sirius also has a couple things in its back pocket that will help its cash flow. The company carries $4 billion in past losses, which it can use to shield its earnings from taxes. In addition, as a result of the merger of Sirius and XM back in 2007, the company runs two separate satellite systems, but only actually needs one. Sirius could choose to significantly expand its offerings and perhaps even incorporate video, which would likely draw in a whole new set of subscribers. Another option for Sirius would be to sell off the unused spectrum to the highest bidder, which would translate to billions of dollars in a marketplace where communications companies are constantly vying for more bandwidth. For example, part of the reason AT&T merged with DirecTV in 2015 was to ensure it had enough spectrum to fulfill its customers’ ever-growing use of content."


IF SiriusXM has enough bandwidth to consider selling its "unused" spectrum, or venture into streaming video, you'd think they'd have enough to offer sound that's better than two tin cups connected with a string.

 

A couple of days ago, I got bored with my usual mix of my XM radio news and talk radio, and my music on USB, and decided to just listen to the 70s station while driving home. The first thing I noticed is that they've seemed to upgrade the sound quality again, and the pitch of the music is back to normal. For a good year or two, someone had sped it up, and it was unlistenable to me.

 

They only care about money though, not the quality.

 

What can you expect from a service that shows a picture of Rick Moranis instead of Richard Harris whenever "MacArthur Park" plays?

 

The playlists are an absolute joke.

 

No Punk rock station either. Even with SiriusXM, X can't get played on the radio........I must not think bad thoughts.

 

XM always did blow Sirius out of the water. The merge killed stations that were for die hard music lovers. Fred. Ethel. Their version of Deep Tracks . Just a damn shame.

 

Satellite radio is technology that would have been very useful in the 1980's and into the mid/late 90's. Now? We have internet streaming, cell phones, and bluetooth connectivity. Why would I want to go backwards? It's even less useful than satellite television (which in and of itself is slowly being phased out).

 

Yeah, got it for free in my new car. Novelty wears off in a matter of days. Sound quality still isn't that great and drop outs in the foothills here is a regular occurrence. Playlist is thin: heard Siouxsie and the Banshees' Cities In Dust on First Wave three times in a 36 hour span. Could've been worse I guess, at least it wasn't Beds Are Burning by Midnight Oil...

 

The Jazz channel, #67, is pretty good, as is the Grateful Dead channel.

 

So even SiriusXM has limited playlists too?

 

The kids and I love Willie's Roadhouse.