Yes, Sirius is compressed

Myself and others have complained about the sound quality of the Sirius radio in our new 5s. Was just forwarded this from a friend - it is from http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10909934/page/2/

Basically they are confirming that Satellite radio can barely sound as good as FM and that SOME channels will sound better than others.

Here is the most important part...

"At their [satellite radio] best they sound good. At their worst they sound horrible — like a MP3 song file processed to take up very little hard drive space. There are a number of technical reasons for current satellite radio sound quality; I won’t bore you with most of them. In a nutshell, each satellite service sends out one signal which then has to be un-squeezed/sorted out into a hundred or so channels by the receiver. Not all channels are created equally. Some channels are allowed to sound better than others.

At their best, music channels on a satellite radio system offer about half the bandwidth of a local FM radio station signal. There just isn’t enough room for numerous higher fidelity feeds. That means, at its best, satellite radio barely approaches terrestrial radio sound quality. I won’t discuss satellite music stations which utilize less bandwidth than the better sounding ones. And forget about all-talk feeds. When you get a chance, try to listen at the same time to something like "Car Talk" on both FM and satellite. Switch back and forth and compare what you hear. One sounds like it's being channeled through a car muffler.
"

Reply » Yes, Sirius is compressed

Interesting, thanks.

My '04 E60 AM/FM almost always has static, but I got the windows tinted so soon after purchase I don't recall whether there was a before/after difference. The tint was metallic not ceramic. I don't have Sirius.

Our other vehicles '05 GMC Sierra Denali, '02 Toyota 4-Runner, all sound fine re AM/FM in areas the E60 does not.

The Sierra has XM, and it sounds sooo much better than the Sierra's FM, even though the FM sounds good and superior to the E60 FM. The XM sounds so good to me (not as good as CD imho), that I cannot listen to FM if I have the choice.

just my experience, fwiw.

Reply » Yes, Sirius is compressed

I immediatly noticed the sound quality, or lack of it when I started listeneing to Sirius a couple of weeks ago.

I dont have an E60 but I imagine the listenenting experience is similar.

It does sound better when I listen through my home stereo than in the car and in general the music stations sound better than the talk stations. To me the talk stations have the fidelity of AM radio. But without all the static and signal drift.

I do hope that improving the sound quality is at the top of the agenda or at least right after signing up new subscribers.

Reply » Yes, Sirius is compressed

Quote:

If they use a lower sampling rate on some stations, surely it would be the talk stations.

Howard sounds pretty good in the mornings, live. I've thought he sounds better now than on old fashioned testicle radio. I wonder if his contract specifies certain technical aspects of his broadcast -- I certainly would not be surprised to hear that it does! He runs his own board and is very old-school when it comes to caring about signal, etc. He surely researched this issue before signing.

*EDIT* I did a Google search on satellite radio audio compression. A lot has been written about this -- no need to speculate!

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