Choice vs. Quality

[DashRiprock]

I’m curious how other listeners feel about the audio quality on XM. If there were fewer channels, say 130 or so, they could use that bandwidth to bump up the bitrate. Here’s the question:

Would you accept fewer choices in exchange for higher quality audio?

 

[hootmon]

Me, I would rather have the choice. I long ago gave up on expensive stereo equipment, so for me the sound quality is good enough for me. I'm sure everyone has channels they feel are a waste of bandwidth, but the wide variety of choices is one big reason many people go to satellite.

 

[Chuck]

I suspect that choice wins out over quality. XM rides the fence on "good enough," which seems to work for most people. I've even had some people tell me how good it sounds.....

 

[John Waywoods]

Judging from people I talk to - no scientific approach here. The variety gets people to sign up but the sound quality (or lack thereof) convinces them to not re-sign. If you analyze XM's numbers you'll see churn is very high (at just over 50%). That is all the proof I need.

It is a shame because prior to Clear Channel inserting commercials into their stations (Mix, Sunny, Kiss, Blend, Nashville), forcing XM to add replacement channels, XM SQ was very good.

 

[DashRiprock]

Judging from people I talk to - no scientific approach here. The variety gets people to sign up but the sound quality (or lack thereof) convinces them to not re-sign. If you analyze XM's numbers you'll see churn is very high (at just over 50%). That is all the proof I need.

It is a shame because prior to Clear Channel inserting commercials into their stations (Mix, Sunny, Kiss, Blend, Nashville), forcing XM to add replacement channels, XM SQ was very good.

Could they possibly squeeze more bandwidth for the music channels at the expense of the talk channels?

 

[PaulO]

Judging from people I talk to - no scientific approach here. The variety gets people to sign up but the sound quality (or lack thereof) convinces them to not re-sign. If you analyze XM's numbers you'll see churn is very high (at just over 50%). That is all the proof I need.

It is a shame because prior to Clear Channel inserting commercials into their stations (Mix, Sunny, Kiss, Blend, Nashville), forcing XM to add replacement channels, XM SQ was very good.

Could they possibly squeeze more bandwidth for the music channels at the expense of the talk channels?


I don't think there is much more that they can do with talk. Talk radio has commericals and bumper music. If it were just dry vocals you could lower it some. You don't want it sounding like the traffic channels.

I still vote to knock a few channels off. As far as I'm concerned they can take off every sports channel except for the 2 ESPN channels and the baseball games. What XM is saying when they try to brag about their sports channels is that they have sports too. In my opinion (taking in to account my geographical location in the US Sirius has better sports options and those contracts aren't likely to change anytime soon.

They can also take off WLW we have the internet for that.

 

[amlover]

Choice is number 1...The quality of xm is fine. I wouldn't do without it now.

 

[smashedcd]

i started with xm in august of 2002 with cd quality audio and 100 channels. now they have 170 channels with 8 track deck quality and i am staying. i cant get album rock on fm. and i grew up with am. so i am staying. i have 3 xm subscriptions btw..

 

[qid937]

I don't hear any thing missing in terms of audio presentation on XM, so I don't see the reason to up the overall sound.

 

[buttonpuncher]

Has anyone ever been surveyed by XM? I'm curious how they determine the listenership of each channel. Do they simply base it on listener feedback via emails etc?

There is some redundancy of music across the rock family of channels and some could be consolidated, I miss XM Music Lab but still find music that was played there on Fine Tuning and Deep Tracks. I’m sure there are similar redundancies in other genres that I don’t listen to much.

DashRipRock wrote:
Could they possibly squeeze more bandwidth for the music channels at the expense of the talk channels?

Perhaps they could, I first had Sirius and the talk there sounded like it had fewer bits allocated than XM, you could still easily understand the words okay.

But, I remember hearing Randi Rhodes (Air America) on an FM station when visiting Madison WI and at first wasn't sure if it was her because she sounded so different on Sirius(back when they had AAR)

 

[CTListener]

Has anyone ever been surveyed by XM? I'm curious how they determine the listenership of each channel. Do they simply base it on listener feedback via emails etc?

XM surveys listeners regularly, but because the surveys are sent only to 2,000 or fewer listeners at a time, only a dozen or so times a year, any one subscriber's chances of being asked are quite small. Still, the science of statistics tells us that results from a poll of 1,000 truly random respondents from a potential pool of 7.5 million will produce results representative of the greater number. Think XM's decisions on music popularity are wrong because they haven't asked everyone or because they've never asked anyone you know? Think again.

 

[DashRiprock]

I don't hear any thing missing in terms of audio presentation on XM, so I don't see the reason to up the overall sound.

The better your system, the more you will notice. I’m fine in the car, but when I hook up to my home system it sounds a little 'flat' or 'muddy' to me.

I love XM. The quality is not so bad that it’s going to drive me away, but I’ll continue to hope that their techies will figure out a way to improve the system.

 

[multiplex]

The quality has degraded so much in the past year that I can now hear artifacts on poorer equipment. Air America now sounds like a 20K Windows Media feed, yet the talk channels programmed by Clear Channel (152, 165 and 166) sound much better. (Something's wrong with this picture.)
If an Air America program is being carried on my local AM station, I know it'll sound better there. Since I'm paying 13 bucks for my XM subscription, I don't want _any_ programming to sound worse than AM!
XM's high-bit-rate online feeds are 64K, and they _all_ sound better than their radio equivalents.
I like choice, but I also like quality. When there are so many channels that quality suffers, there are too many channels.
This may be part of the equation: Clear Channel has been guaranteed a certain amount of bandwidth per their contract with XM. Is all of that bandwith being used? They _were_ going to program six regional news-talk channels, but that never happened.
Is that bandwith still being held up, even though CC isn't using it?
:

 

[hman]

to every one i have a ford focus and the quality of xm on my radio is great maybe u people need to get a ford even though theyare goning to sirus in the near future on their cars......... ;D

 

[mikl73]

that's because most factory speakers do not deliver the same dynamic range of higher end systems... so the impression will be that it sounds fine... i would settle to loose some quality on talk for better quality on music channels.. and i agree about AAR.. I more often listen OTA on AM that on XM to AAR.

 

[JeffreyWigand]

The quality has degraded so much in the past year that I can now hear artifacts on poorer equipment. Air America now sounds like a 20K Windows Media feed, yet the talk channels programmed by Clear Channel (152, 165 and 166) sound much better. (Something's wrong with this picture.)

This may be part of the equation: Clear Channel has been guaranteed a certain amount of bandwidth per their contract with XM. Is all of that bandwith being used? They _were_ going to program six regional news-talk channels, but that never happened.
Is that bandwith still being held up, even though CC isn't using it?
:

Clear Channel OWNS a certain amount of the bandwidth. As does GM, Honda, etc. If they wanted to call in their note, you could hear "Like a Rock" or Accord commercials 24x7. That CC utilizes their bandwidth for quality rather than quantity is a choice. 20 on 20 vs KISS21 is no comparison. Same with Highway16 vs Nashville11. The cc stations are way better. So you put up with 2x2minute spot blocks per hour. At least there's no incessant imaging and chatter between every freakin' song.

 

[PaulO]

The quality has degraded so much in the past year that I can now hear artifacts on poorer equipment. Air America now sounds like a 20K Windows Media feed, yet the talk channels programmed by Clear Channel (152, 165 and 166) sound much better. (Something's wrong with this picture.)

This may be part of the equation: Clear Channel has been guaranteed a certain amount of bandwidth per their contract with XM. Is all of that bandwith being used? They _were_ going to program six regional news-talk channels, but that never happened.
Is that bandwith still being held up, even though CC isn't using it?
:

Clear Channel OWNS a certain amount of the bandwidth. As does GM, Honda, etc. If they wanted to call in their note, you could hear "Like a Rock" or Accord commercials 24x7. That CC utilizes their bandwidth for quality rather than quantity is a choice. 20 on 20 vs KISS21 is no comparison. Same with Highway16 vs Nashville11. The cc stations are way better. So you put up with 2x2minute spot blocks per hour. At least there's no incessant imaging and chatter between every freakin' song.

I use the XMPCR and I can't stand the audio on some channels. It sounds like they are working on the audio. From I am hearing they are still working but there is a noticable difference between the audio on America Right and Air America. Neither one of them are clear channel channels.

 

[HenryOchs]

The quality has degraded so much in the past year that I can now hear artifacts on poorer equipment. Air America now sounds like a 20K Windows Media feed, yet the talk channels programmed by Clear Channel (152, 165 and 166) sound much better. (Something's wrong with this picture.)

This may be part of the equation: Clear Channel has been guaranteed a certain amount of bandwidth per their contract with XM. Is all of that bandwith being used? They _were_ going to program six regional news-talk channels, but that never happened.
Is that bandwith still being held up, even though CC isn't using it?
:

Clear Channel OWNS a certain amount of the bandwidth. As does GM, Honda, etc. If they wanted to call in their note, you could hear "Like a Rock" or Accord commercials 24x7. That CC utilizes their bandwidth for quality rather than quantity is a choice. 20 on 20 vs KISS21 is no comparison. Same with Highway16 vs Nashville11. The cc stations are way better. So you put up with 2x2minute spot blocks per hour. At least there's no incessant imaging and chatter between every freakin' song.

I think the C.C. Channels sound MUCH better than most of the other music channels on XM! My favorite channel on XM is WSIX from Nashville! The station plays great Country music and has an excellent morning show(Gerry House.) I have an idea for XM. Maybe they should add WOBB(B100) a Country station broadcast from Albany, GA. Any thoughts?

 

[Obtuse1]

Some of us are at a real disadvantage because we remember how great XM sounded when they launched, which for all channels was somewhere between FM and CD. Similar to Music Choice on my cable system, and better than Sirius at the time.

I treat it now like I do FM....I know I'm not getting top-quality audio, but for the most part it's listenable (an in-car graphic EQ helps).

 

[vchimpanzee]

On one of my radios the Dial Global standards station sounds like someone is tearing up the street in the background. Or I get squealing on another radio if it's not tuned just right, or oither stations in the background at certain times of day.

The Worthless Classics station (when I bothered to listen) always has an alternative station in the background, or an urban adult station if I try to get away from the alternative station. Unless the weather is just right.

I'm not going to be picky.