Just returned a rented Ford with a Sirius radio. Do they purposely squeeze the bandwidth on the music channels? The audio on the jazz and songwriter channels is almost unlistenable. (Some AM radio stations have better fidelity.)
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Audio Quality of Sirius
- Thread starter NotACasualListener
- Start date
Yes some channels are narrower than others, but unlistenable?
You're in a car you are not used to, with a stock sound system that you are not used to, that is probably not the best of quality, that probably needs some eq'ing. I find in most cars wiht stock systems that Sirius built in needs a different eq than FM which by itself is often very compressed and has rather poor stereo separation. I have an outboard Sirius receiver on a high-end system that is plugged directly in and the difference is astonishing compared to stock.
You're in a car you are not used to, with a stock sound system that you are not used to, that is probably not the best of quality, that probably needs some eq'ing. I find in most cars wiht stock systems that Sirius built in needs a different eq than FM which by itself is often very compressed and has rather poor stereo separation. I have an outboard Sirius receiver on a high-end system that is plugged directly in and the difference is astonishing compared to stock.
I have sirius in a dodge truck, and all the equilizing, amplifiers and giant speakers in the world wouldn't fix that mess. Some of the channels have such low bitrates that it almost sounds like the audio from a dial up modem, or a cell phone. Swishy gurgling "underwater" sound. The treble sounds sound metalic and squeeky and sometimes certain notes in the lower range will be completly blanked out, similar to the way a notch filter will do. Some are better than others, but some of the less popular channels are the worst. The talk channels are almost unlistenable due to the cell phone quality audio. it sounds like a 16bit or less Mp3. I like oldies, but the 60's channel has such low bitrate and swishy audio that I mostly listen to our local AM oldies station instead because it sounds better. The only reason I listen to sirius is so I can get songs I can't normally hear on AM or FM.
Trade in your Sirius for an XM receiver.
The Chrysler Sirius radio audio is absolutely horrible on music channels. Swirly, metallic, tinny, nasty on the ears even with midrange and treble down. An oldies AM station from Canada truly sounds better than Sirius Channel 56, or 7, or 6.
I don't remember XM sounding this bad. I almost want a 'recall' on this Chrysler Sirius radio and put an XM in its place!
I don't remember XM sounding this bad. I almost want a 'recall' on this Chrysler Sirius radio and put an XM in its place!
It’s not unusual to pick up a rental car and find that the bass and the treble are both turned all the way up. And many people who get a rental car in that condition don’t bother (or can’t figure out how) to set them to more normal conditions. And on some radios the settings are separate for each band, so perhaps the satellite band had the tone settings mucked up.
I have rented Fords as well. As a long time XM sub, I was shocked at how bad Sirius sounded in these rental cars. FM however, sounded just fine in these cars. Great promotion for the service
It now seems as of late the XM service is suffering as well. Streams ARE nearly unlistenable on the Sirius in our Jeep..but now the XM is nearly as bad in the Chevy. This won't bode well for the future. The Internet streams are still quite good however.
So it begs the question; when will SiriusXM ever give a rat's arse about the audio quality? They CANNOT add any more channels without turning what they have into garbage over the air. I can't believe that they are hoping everybody gets a smartphone and pays for data to use the online. They have millions of installs in cars and it appears that mangement has ignored our cries for AM level audio quality on the music channels. How can we get SXM's attention? The mono music channels on XM sound bad, and the swirly sounds of Sirius are really getting on my nerves. So if 2 million cancel due to sound quality, SXM doesn't care as they plan on adder another 2 mil next year. I don't get it. No more single artist channels hogging up bandwidth.
Does anybody have a contact at SXM that might actually listen to a long-time customer's concerns about the audio quality going down the crapper?
Does anybody have a contact at SXM that might actually listen to a long-time customer's concerns about the audio quality going down the crapper?
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audiomusiclover
Guest
JohnnyElectron said:
AGREE 100 PERCENT - They should just move their stations to the abandoned AM radio band as it could help with their sound quality.
Re: Audio quality of Sirius is simply horrible
I have the origional In-V in my car using the line out to a cassette adaptor. Most of the time I don't drive for too long, and I usually listen to Howard. But yesterday I had to drive for a while and yes the audios just terrible on the music stations. I can tollerate it for a song or two, but not for over an hour. I wound up listening to terrestrial FM, just because it sounded better. I even checked it out on my mothers new car that has the sirius receiver built in, and it was the same thing. I also have the internet/smartphone service and when I hook that up in the car it's a day and night difference in audio quality because of the different (and a whole lot more of) bandwidth. But I don't want to keep hooking that up everytime I want to hear music, but I guess I might have to. I do know one thing, next month when I have to renew, I'll be calling them up and using this audio issue for great leverage on negociating what I'm going to pay for the next year.
I have the origional In-V in my car using the line out to a cassette adaptor. Most of the time I don't drive for too long, and I usually listen to Howard. But yesterday I had to drive for a while and yes the audios just terrible on the music stations. I can tollerate it for a song or two, but not for over an hour. I wound up listening to terrestrial FM, just because it sounded better. I even checked it out on my mothers new car that has the sirius receiver built in, and it was the same thing. I also have the internet/smartphone service and when I hook that up in the car it's a day and night difference in audio quality because of the different (and a whole lot more of) bandwidth. But I don't want to keep hooking that up everytime I want to hear music, but I guess I might have to. I do know one thing, next month when I have to renew, I'll be calling them up and using this audio issue for great leverage on negociating what I'm going to pay for the next year.
I always listen to Sirius on a computer, as you get much better audio quality, compared to listening to the satellite. Lately however I have noticed the old on-line player has gone away. IMO, the new one sounds like crap. Anyone know if the old player is still around somewhere on line?
I found the old player, and it's audio quality is just as bad as the new player. I'm not sure what is currently going on at Sirius, but the audio quality on their streams now sounds horrible. It's not as bad as the satellite delivered audio, but a big step back from what it *did* sound like on the streams, which was pretty decent. What a stupid decision on their part. I'm almost ready to cancel my subscription.
I'm trying to find somebody at SiriusXM that you can actually talk to about the (lack of) audio quality. It would be nice if they would at least acknowledge that they've crammed too many channels in, causing the quality to go to hell, but it seems to be changing again, and not for the better. Anybody have any idea who we could contact regarding audio quality?
Sr. Director for Engineering at Sirius/XM is Steve Uckerman, but I can't find an email address for him. Please let me know if you find one for him.
It's sad and frustrating that they have this state of the art facility, and now due to the sample rate reduction on their webstreams (we all know that the satellite delivered streams always sounded horrible), no longer can we hear the great audio quality that this facility was capable of broadcasting. IMO, the webstreams *had* CD quality, but now they sound like low sample rate MP3's. I would love to know who's brain was behind that decision.
My computer and phone still sound perfect to me. The other day I listened to a talk show done from the person's house and could hear her dogs nails as it quietly walked across a wooden floor
That may be true, but what music channels have you listened to lately? And in how much more detail would those dog's nails on the floor have sounded prior to the change? Are you listening to headphones 50% of the time like me? I actually can do an A-B comparison, as I have CD's that I recorded when they debuted the Studio 54 channel (in 2011). I have also been listening to other music channels almost every other day, and my ears tell me something drastic, just recently, has happened to the webstream's audio, and it is not pleasing at all. All of the music channels I listen to now have a sampling rate similar to low sampled rate MP3's (at least this is how I describe it). This is the problem, if no one cares about high quality audio (or in Sirius's case, decent quality audio), why pay for all of that bandwidth. I don't doubt this is what they are thinking at Sirius/XM, and why the change took place. As always, it's all about money.
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