Enjoy 64kbps mp3's? Get Sirius....

[Deejor 10+ year member]

Hello all,

I posted in the HU forum a few weeks ago asking about any new HU's that have a Sirius tuner built in because I got a Sirius FM transmitter for XMAS and was unhappy with the sound quality. Basically it seemed like there was alot of static popping and in general just did not compare to the FM stations.

I read in a few places in the forums that the FM xmitter stuff is not very good and decided that I needed a line-in tuner or tuner built into the HU.

However the more I listened to Sirius the more I was reminded of the digital problems I was used to hearing in what I would call "bad" mp3's. Noting this I decided to check it out by listening from the website and was again reminded of a low bitrate mp3 or low bitrate streaming video from the web.

Deciding that this must be a good indication of the sound quality I would get if I invested in a new HU for my vehicle I decided to surf around more and see what others had to say on the subject. The following link is to a thread that contains a lot of comprehensive discussion on the subject.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/archive/index.php/t-402938.html

Suffice it to say that, in general, most people seem to rate the satellite radio sound quality at 128kbps mp3 at best. More likely equivalent to a 64kbps mp3 and from what I have heard I agree.

I am more than a little dissappointed that, to me and many others, the sound quality is much worse than conventional analog FM. As much as I'd like to keep the thing just to listen to Stern I can't justify $13/mo for that alone. I will be returning the receiver and cancelling my subscription.

Just wanted to give anyone else out there who is considering making the move to satellite something else to chew on before running out to buy something that isn't all it's cracked up to be. I wish I had known about this stuff before, but at least I haven't spent a ton of money trying to get it to work like some have.

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[docutech 10+ year member]

I have experienced the same thing. Although I am still a subscriber, I am in the process of replacing every sound component in my Kia Optima. I am hopefull that I will see a slight change in the sound of my Sirius radio, or better yet I will be able to make more adjustments to the sound output. As of now I can tell a HUGE difference between the Sirius and my Ipod. Granted my mp3's are encoded in a higher bitrate I was very dissapointed with the sound quality difference when switching from Ipod mode to the Sirius mode.

If you are a audiofile, Sirius will be seriously dissapointing. I guess compression has to be pretty high so that the signal can reach your antenna in a timely manner.

 

[OldOneEye 10+ year member]

Most Satellite is piped through the FM tuner, so they don't really care about SQ. Sad, but true. And yes, the SQ is pretty bad.

Juan

 

[VOA_NIGHTMARE 10+ year member]

wow and for the past 2 weeks I have been wanting to get it