Why does xm sound so bad

Thank goodness I'll at least have a year to see if I like it enough. Kinda crazy how the luxury brands charge us for CarPlay. My favorite stream is, believe it or not Amazon Music. Both are unlistenable for music and only barely tolerable for talk radio.

SiriusXM just sounds like crap and I've had them now for about 15 years. The only channel that has a decent bitrate as per a friend that used to work there is the Symphony Hall but everything else is sub par and they keep compressing. I've been mostly streaming Apple and Google music and it's ridiculously night and day compared to SiriusXM. They just don't seem to have enough bandwidth to handle all those channels without massive compression.

But, it still beats over the air. It's nice not having to search for a local radio station when on a road trip. Once my 'free' 1 year runs out I will definitely not start paying for it. My solution is to use the 'offline' mode of the music app using Pandora, but works for others so music will keep playing even without cell coverage.

As well I'm on Google Fi, so there's no included data allowance. We generally just listen to either downloaded or streaming music. However, for longer trips, we'll listen to various downloaded podcasts. We're currently listening to what I'd describe as "historical horror" -- disturbing or horrific events that actually occurred. Before that, we were listening to mystery shows in the style of campy s detective gumshoe mysteries.

Second Lieutenant. Sat radio always sounded like crap. Sat radio audio quality makes me nostalgic for my old green Diamond Rio. Mine sounds the same was but when I play thru my iPhone it is a superb audio system. Same thing, crappy SAT audio I use Spotify at all times. Anybody familiar with this issue? Is it a settings thing in the system? I'm not an audiophile. I had 1 year of Sirus on the last new car I bought.

I've used both factory systems and aftermarket ones. However, I would not consider myself an audiophile, so I may just not notice it. For me the advantage is to hear music anytime v. I had a car without it for a little while and finding a local station that just played music I'm ok with ads as opposed to DJ's who had to fill with worthless drivel was impossible.

Ended up going to my phone, but that still doesn't provide the variety. I think it has to do with the channel you're on.

It makes me wonder if its a pay-per-bandwidth thing for the stations. The NPR station on mine has a lot of that chorusing you're talking about. Especially with Ss and Ts. Its almost like there is a bit of reverb with certain consonants.

The first channel the preview mix is always that way for me. But I don't find it to be an issue on other channels. Either that or I've tuned it out in my brain. I find it to be very good quality reproduction, but a bit attenuated. For instance, if I play the same song on satellite and then a CD, the CD has more punch, more channel separation, and more bass. Whether it applies to cell phones, MP3s or satellite radio , it's code for the provider cramming more signals into the same bandwidth or space and sacrificing audio detail in the process.

They have a more efficient business but you end up listening to tin. Sat radio is a major culprit. I ran XM channel here at CNET in the early s, so I know it addresses a number of FM broadcast's shortcomings, but it makes you pay with a signal that often sounds dry and lifeless.

There are a few things you can do, however, to "rehydrate" SiriusXM. Give the bird the bird. When I was covering the launch of satellite radio in the US in the mid '90s, the companies raved about their " perceptual coding ," an algorithm that removes audio data they think you won't perceive is missing. Back when they were separate companies, both Sirus and XM were much higher quality.

The quality began to drop after the merger. Also, they have a whole other set of channels for background music in businesses, signals for other languages and countries, dedicated channels for more sports, etc.

Mo Channels, Mo Money! Quality can be reduced to the point where people actually start cancelling the service, and not a second before. The company is not run by the engineers, but by graduates of various business schools where these type of decisions are not merely encouraged but rewarded. As for Bose, have you never heard the old taunting rhyme "No highs, no lows, it must be Bose"? That applied mainly to the , which proved the folly of trying to produce full range sound via 9 4" mid-range speakers better suited for installation in a clock-radio.

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