How does XM/Sirius quality compare to FM ?

[Robert Morein]

You have to have a really good tuner to make the comparison with the best of
FM.

If you have an exceptional one (the cheapest ones I know are the Sony 730ES,
the 222ES, but not the 550ES), your opinion is of interest.

[Bret Ludwig]

In a word, XM quality is not as good, and Sirius is worse yet.

The analog sections of even inexpensive XM and Sirius receivers are
less of a "choke point" than the basic XM and Sirius technologies. The
bottom line is that both technologies cram from 80 to 140 _music_
channels, plus many more speech/talk channels and data services unknown
to most consumer users (such as aircraft weather), in a digital path
which is approximately 4 MHz wide.

When XM came out, its bandwidth was used by a lower number of music
channels and other services and at that time, using automotive XM
components to generate a line level out into a proper professional mix
monitor listening configuration (Genelec actives), my assessment was it
was subjectively better than the local FM stations which Orbanned their
MP3 stored selections (they don't use CD players, let alone carts or
turntables, anymore) into a constant-duty-cycle buzz that looked like
Ron Jeremy's mustache on a RTA.

It has degraded to the point where XM and Sirius are now about equally
bad.

Analog FM is capable of excellent fidelity but the key problems are
the use of excessive signal processing, the storage of source material
on degraded audio storage formats, and most importantly the refusal of
radio stations to play any music one would want to listen to in most
cases.

[Robert Morein]

"Bret Ludwig" > wrote in message
oups.com...
> In a word, XM quality is not as good, and Sirius is worse yet.
[snip]
>
> Analog FM is capable of excellent fidelity but the key problems are
> the use of excessive signal processing, the storage of source material
> on degraded audio storage formats, and most importantly the refusal of
> radio stations to play any music one would want to listen to in most
> cases.
>
Very true. When David Hafler designed the DH-330 FM tuner, it had only five
presets. When asked, he replied that there was no place where there were
more than five good stations. I still find afew at the low end of the dial.

[Margaret von B.]

"Robert Morein" > wrote in message
...
> You have to have a really good tuner to make the comparison with the best
> of
> FM.
>
> If you have an exceptional one (the cheapest ones I know are the Sony
> 730ES,
> the 222ES, but not the 550ES), your opinion is of interest.
>
>

Hi Rob!

I had both for a month, the Sirius remains because I hate all that Clear
Channel crap on XM. The quality varies greatly by stream, more so with
Sirius. I'd say Sirius had both the best and worst sounding streams. Good FM
beats the bets sats easily. Most FM in Central Texas is comparable to the
best sat streams with excessive processing that produces a flat and lifeless
sound. I like Sirius for reasons other than sound quality, don't expect too
much. But even the programming is getting more and more predictable and
needs to evolve soon or I may dump it.

Cheers,

Margaret

[[email protected]]

>>> I had both for a month, the Sirius remains because I hate all that Clear Channel crap on XM.

What bull****.

Clear Channel has nothing whatsoever to do with XM, let alone XM's
programming.

XM's music programming is so far superior to Sirius it isn't even
funny. Either satellite radio company's content is so far superior to
FM you can't compare it.

As to the sound quality argument, I suspect a reasonable argument can
be made that the very best FM in existence is better than XM's sound;
but that would be under the rarest of circumstances. While XM does
cram a lot into the available bandwidth, they are reasonably judicious
about it, and manage to meet the requirements of most people.

Sirius does, as well -- to a slightly lesser extent.

I'll give up a little sound quality for the breadth of content, any day.

[Margaret von B.]

> wrote in message
ups.com...

> Larry Mays is mah daddy

Please ignore this paid shill.

Cheers,

Margaret

[tubeguy]

Satellite radio sucks, I can't believe anyone would pay money for it- the
quality is so bad that it's laughable. My boss has it and I get a kick out
of making fun of him for it- it's just a freaking joke. But he's cool about
it, he and I both hope the sampling rate gets up there into the listen
category sometime in our lives. It's a great idea to have the same program
plastered over the country, but if it's crappy quality, who cares?


"Robert Morein" > wrote in message
...
> You have to have a really good tuner to make the comparison with the best
> of
> FM.
>
> If you have an exceptional one (the cheapest ones I know are the Sony
> 730ES,
> the 222ES, but not the 550ES), your opinion is of interest.
>
>

[[email protected]]

Okay, bull****ter.

What evidence do you have that Clear Channel has ANYTHING to XM?

CCU was a minor shareholder at one time but long ago bailed out of
those shares.