Ipod vs. Satellite Radio

[R05Nismo 10+ year member]

I have a 1gig Ipod now which holds 200 or so songs and I'm going to get either an 8gig Ipod or Sirius satellite radio. I have only heard satellite radio in cars with factory speakers and wanted to know how it sounds? I know they claim near CD quality sound but what does it really sound like. I'm pretty happy with the SQ of the Ipod but I don't spend alot of time online so it's a pain to sit around finding sounds to down load.

So what do you prefer and why?

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[ProgMtl 10+ year member]

Sat. radio is nice if you like to listen to the same thing all the time and have no control over what songs you get to listen to.

Used to have sirius and got rid of it for a 160gb iPod...never looking back

 

[R05Nismo 10+ year member]

How do you feel the quality was on the sat?

 

[pellis 10+ year member]

no way to put it, but the SQ sux. It is compressed audio, no way of getting around it especially in a car. sat radio is better than fm for the quantity/ amount of different types of music you can hear. i have been running sat radio for 5 yrs and i dont regret, i dont even have my fm antenna plugged in. fm blows!!!!

 

[2wheeler 10+ year member]

I've got both, quality is similar, both are a big step down from a good CD. I listen to Sirius all the time, the Ipod gets used when Sat reception is bad.

 

[Redlineaudio 10+ year member]

I dislike the Sat sound, It is very compressed at times and has that hollow sound. but they might just be the stations my wife listens to.

On the flip side there is lots of content and lots of talk stations.

I have not listened to enough Ipod or MP3 yet to form a real opinion, but high Bitrate rips have sounded good. Still rather have the CD if at all possible.

 

[helotaxi 5,000+ posts]

There is more stuff broadcast over sirius/XM than exists in my personal music collection by orders of magnitude. I also found that as long as you avoid the Top 40 type stations, it isn't repetitive very much at all. I've driven for 15 hours listening to XM without hearing the same song twice.

As far as the sound quality goes, not much of a difference. The compression algorithm that XM uses is better than that of Sirius, hopefully they keep that one when they merge. Listening to them a/b the difference is quite noticable. Quality on the iPod is going to depend entirely on the bit rate and the connection method.

I have had both iPod and XM in my car for the last 2 years and I'll continue to have both for the foreseeable future.

 

[bigbangtheory 5,000+ posts]

My Ipod sounds like poo in my car anymore. Ever since I switched to my PG Rsd's, but CD's sound even better than before. Nothing compares to a CD as far as caraudio goes IMO.

I had XM when it first came out, and I noticed a difference in quailty, but wasn't horrible, just a little off from my CD's. I have thought about getting Sirris, but not sure. Went back to listening to nothin but CD's.

Good thing I only have maybe 400 songs on my iPod. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/frown.gif.a3531fa0534503350665a1e957861287.gif I guess the girls will like it when I give it to them.

 

[R05Nismo 10+ year member]

I'm leaning towards just getting a bigger Ipod. No sence in paying for music i'm not going to listen to. And I can take the Ipod anywhere. After looking at the 8gig I noticed the 80gig classic is only 40 bucks more so I might as well just get that one.

And I know for sure CD's are the only way to get the best SQ so it's always good to have a few around that will bring out the best in your stereo.

 

[Macklessdaddy 10+ year member]

I bought a used sirius tuner on ebay and had free service for about 6 to 8 months,and when they cut it off I decided not to pay for it do to repeated shit all the time,quality was mediocre at best