Sirius Satellite Radio

Troubles me greatly that you feel that way.

 

I have Sirius XM in my 2017 CRV. The sound quality is abysmal. I often wonder if they remix songs with lesser musical content (see Satisfaction post above). I do, however, like the wide range of programming and that is enough to keep me a customer for now. I just try to enjoy it for what it is despite the awful audio quality.

 

It's a trade-off between quality and availability. Better to understand that before purchasing than moan about it afterwards.

 

So I don't think that is correct.
What SIRI needs to do is merge its SIRI bandwidth with XM. They announce they are projected to do this within 5 years. Once they do, they will have a huge amount of spectrum.
They can easily put 400 music channels. And they can also broadcast television.
They could increase the bitrate but chose not to.

Changing topics, I remember reading that SIRIUS/XM sounded better when it was piped through Dish Network (As their music channels)
SiriusXM Music Pack | MyDISH


An old thread:
Dish Network Sirius channels have better sound Quality? - SIRIUS Backstage Forum

 

+1

 

But what I still don't get is that you can stream high quality audio AND video over a fairly slow internet connection - in some cases, at a very low data rate. I can stream an HD TV signal via the YouTube TV app on my Roku and that sounds and looks fine at less than 3 MB/sec. Doesn't the Sirius/XM satellite have the ability to send the data out at those slow data speeds?

And again, what does the transmission speed have to do with the mix? I have heard many terrible-sounding mp3 files, some as low as 96 kbps. And yes, the fidelity is terrible, but the mix is the mix. Keith's fuzz guitar on "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" might sound like crap but it'll be there and not moved into the background like it's just bleeding through from the other channel.

Is there something in the Sirius/XM tech specs that could be causing this weirdness?

 

As others have stated never pay retail for Sirius.

but for what it is, I’ll subscribe with big discounts. Background music and I listen to a lot of talk radio. CNBC, Dave Ramsey, NBA, ESPN.

Also I’m in Denver and sometimes in the mountains I can’t stream so satellite always works on road trips no matter how the cell service is.

 

Well, they would have double the spectrum...but compared to back in the day it feels like they've doubled the channels! And to do that they would need to standardize to ONE hardware platform. That was an expensive pipe dream at one point when OEMs were asking for it, and it's not clear to me if SXM is still manufacturing two hardware platforms, or only the Sirius platform, or only the XM (while still supporting both so far). Or if they actually implemented a dual chipset. Anyone know? I guess I could ask some old colleagues...

 

Am I the only person on this thread who actually read the OP?

Sirius offers their channel services through two different delivery mechanisms.

One is OTA to the satellite - which is ultra compressed and sounds like complete garbage - but is OK in a low-fi car for many people.

The other is streaming over the internet - just like other streaming services such as Pandora, Spotify, etc. There are apps for Blu-ray players, TVs, phones, tablets, and internet.

OP asked if the streaming option sounds better than the satellite. To anyone who has listened to both, the answer is unquestionably, dramatically, obviously YES.

Most of the discussion here is just noise that has nothing to do with what the OP is asking about.

 

The Chevy Tahoe I bought my wife has Sirius in it and I think it sounds pretty darn good. She wants to keep it and I want a happy life so it looks like she'll get what she wants.

 

Out of curiosity, which service did you test, assuming that this was done prior to the merger? I ask because pre-merger XM sounded decent but after the merger things went downhill.

 

I'd agree with that, XM did seem to sound somewhat better, albeit not great either. The very first test I did was of Sirius-met a BMW engineer for the first time and hopped into a car with him 30 seconds later to drive LA to Phoenix. Fortunately he was a very cool guy. It was totally amazing to be out in the middle of nowhere still listening to the same station. There were only like 3 channels or something, so good quality.

 

As the person who resurrected this thread - yes - I did in fact read the initial post - but it looked to me like they got their answer. I was trying to extend the conversation here in this thread as I have further questions about their poor sound quality via satellite to see if anyone knew a technical reason for such a discrepancy. I cannot stream XM in my car as I do not have unlimited data on my phone. I am stuck with satellite.

If you're saying I should have started another thread, I can do so, but it seemed to me that a thread discussing Sirius/XM's sound quality was a good place to do this.

 

Ah - that's what was confusing. New thread or add to an existing is always a tough decision in situations like this.

 

i have a 6 month free trial with sirius.

i will not renew.

as for the sound, how many of you recall the old days of FM, late at night, everything was very bassy and the DJ's all sounded like they were yawning when they spoke. that is sirius.

 

Yeah, but that was caused by analog transmission degradation. With FM, the signal degradation is well understood, particularly how it affects sound. Sirius/XM satellite signals are digital. A stream of 1' s & 0's that are reconstructed into analog by your Sirius/XM tuner. I want to know how bandwidth and signal degradation can change the digital bitstream.

Of course, I'm assuming that Sirius/XM is digital - why I'm asking in the first place.

 

Even though it seems to have been well established in this thread, I'll add that I've A/Bed between Sirius OTA and streaming in my car and it's a dramatic difference. With unlimited data, it's a no-brainer, and streaming has channels that aren't on OTA as well. Plus, you can have one "real" account and then stream on the other, so it's like having two, assuming the other person doesn't mind the bad sound quality.

 

I propose no TV in the car. How about more bandwidth for better sound quality and higher bitrates on the music channels and have something worth paying for. The present low bitrate needs to go for all non Talk programming .

 

The Sirius App on iPhone has three settings for streaming quality, Normal, High and Maximum.

 

As a stockholder who has been following this issue, SIRI/XM has been selling the headunit with, what we will call the XM chipset that everyone will migrate to, for several years now. To the point where over 50% of all subscribers are now on the chipset everyone will migrate to.
Sirius/XM will still support the Sirius chipset for another 5 years. When I called them up 2 years ago, one rep said 50% of their subscribers are still on the Sirius chipset.

Almost 10 years ago, the inventor of Satellite Radio, Martine Rothblatt, was on Howard Stern and mentioned that the spectrum of the combined services would be enormous (Link is here, but its not mentioned in the notes)
MarksFriggin.com - Stern Show News - Archive


More info on merging the XM/Sirius spectrum in this Motley Fool article:
Could This Be Sirius XM's Most Valuable Asset? | The Motley Fool

 

...but it absolutely WILL NOT end up being used to improve sound quality! Who knows, maybe they'll start a satellite internet service. Or use illegal technology in the third world to clone Howard and Robin en masse and have another 87 Howard Stern channels...
...if they actually increased the fidelity to good levels, they would probably start getting "it sounds funny!" complaints!

Very interesting to note they are migrating to the XM chipset. At the dawn of that mess, despite Sirius pooh-pooh'ing XM's geostationary setup, I told my coworkers "Yeah...but ya know, it's just simpler!" And in the end, neither service seemed to drop very often.

 

I wouldn't dismiss improving fidelity. But I wouldn't put it high on their list either. I think the main issue with merging the spectrum is "How are they going to convert the Sirius people to XM chipset?" So they just wait due to attrition.

All I know is once they unite the spectrum, there's going to be plenty of things they can do with it. I don't think internet is in the cards due to the age of the satellites (they don't have 2 way communication)

They currently have 33 million subscribers. So approx 15 million have the sirius chip set.

I think Sirius is ranked 3rd in subscribers if compared to cable tv subscribers.

 

I play SiriusXm on my Dish Hopper (part of programing package) > RCA out to Yamaha Integrated Amp > Polk Audio LSim 703 & SVS PB 1000. The sound quality is really good .. as good as Tidal lossy on my system. Weird.. don't know what to tell you .. unique to Dish network feed?

It's probably the only reason I have not switched to another Satellite or Cable TV provider. The introductory rate period has expired.

 

i wonder how much impact howard stern has on sirius subscriptions?

would they be as big if he left?