• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

Just heard Sirius for 1st Time

T

Tom Wells

My rental car this week has a Sirius-enabled radio, but it's not enabled for full reception.
It seems to have ch 184, the weather channel default-enabled, so it works enough to test.
The audio sounds just as if you took an AM radio, set a box fan in front of it, and listened through
the spinning blades of the fan. I can't listen for more than 30 seconds without being annoyed.

People PAY for this sort of audio-mangling?
I could design a simple circuit to mangle terrestial radio to make it sound this bad, anyone want to buy one?
I can't imagine music would be listenable all-chopped up and swirly like that.
 
Tom Wells said:
My rental car this week has a Sirius-enabled radio, but it's not enabled for full reception.
It seems to have ch 184, the weather channel default-enabled, so it works enough to test.
The audio sounds just as if you took an AM radio, set a box fan in front of it, and listened through
the spinning blades of the fan. I can't listen for more than 30 seconds without being annoyed.

People PAY for this sort of audio-mangling?
I could design a simple circuit to mangle terrestial radio to make it sound this bad, anyone want to buy one?
I can't imagine music would be listenable all-chopped up and swirly like that.
Click to expand...


i have both services. neither one sounds that bad.
 
OK, maybe channel 184 is a low bit-rate channel as it is weather, and voice only.
But human voices give the codec the most trouble, and should perhaps have the highest data rates.

Seriously, you can't hear the major garbling I'm referring to on ch 184?
I can't listen past it. It reminds me of what a cassette tape sounds like after it's been mangled and put back into the shell.
 
Tom Wells said:
OK, maybe channel 184 is a low bit-rate channel as it is weather, and voice only.
But human voices give the codec the most trouble, and should perhaps have the highest data rates.

Seriously, you can't hear the major garbling I'm referring to on ch 184?
I can't listen past it. It reminds me of what a cassette tape sounds like after it's been mangled and put back into the shell.
Click to expand...

i only listen to the music channels and sports channels. want the weather..look out the window :) or just listen to your local am station every 10 minutes.
 
Tom Wells said:
OK, maybe channel 184 is a low bit-rate channel as it is weather, and voice only.
But human voices give the codec the most trouble, and should perhaps have the highest data rates.

Seriously, you can't hear the major garbling I'm referring to on ch 184?
I can't listen past it. It reminds me of what a cassette tape sounds like after it's been mangled and put back into the shell.
Click to expand...

Ch. 184 is probably one of the LEAST listened to channels on Sirius. Few people ever turn to it, and if they do they only need to listen for a couple of minutes. Same with the traffic channels. Consequently, Sirius gives them all a tiny portion of the available bandwidth to save more for the music channels.
 
The music channels sound far far better, do you think over 5 million subscribers would settle for audio on all 130 channels like 184? And if you think Sirius 184 sounds bad, try XM's traffic & weather channels- sounds like a computerized mockup voice.
 
Avis might have an arragement to provide 184 even if no subscription is otherwise attached to a particular radio.
I haven't heard the other channels. But I have had rentals before with XM, and feel the same about the audio there.
None of them are sending enough data to reproduce acceptable sine waves.
It's like paying to have your portrait taken, but the prints are an 80-line halftone screen on newsprint.
well, yes, it's a picture, but how much would I have to pay to get a real silver-based large format shot taken, and then have it printed on real silver-based photo paper? Oh, they don't do that anymore?
Well, why call it a portrait? This is the same. If over half the data has been thrown away for "compression",
the remainder is hardly "music". It is a "sketch" of some audio.
If XM and Sirius had maybe half the channels, the data might begin to approximate sounds of the real world.
And yes, I think most MP3s are as worthless for the same reason.
Now that many terrestial stations have music on hard drive, we are hearing the same "garblage" there.
 
Tom Wells said:
If XM and Sirius had maybe half the channels, the data might begin to approximate sounds of the real world.
Click to expand...

The original business plan was for 35 CD-quality music channels, period. Then both companies launched the insane content war and audio quality became an afterthought.

The corporate thinking is that audiophiles are a tiny majority, that millions of people don't mind mp3 sound quality or can't tell the difference, and those are the millions they'll try to sign up for satellite radio. The audiophiles can sit at home with their vinyl; Mel Karmazin, Hugh Panero and the investment bankers who keep both operations afloat don't give a crap whether they subscribe or not.
 
Audio quality on the music channels is my biggest gripe with Sirius. I do like a bunch of the various channels, but as a broadcast engineer who prides himself on plant audio quality... EWWWW. They are just cramming way too much stuff in too little bandwidth. Sounds like a mid grade internet stream. The "busier" the music, the worse it gets... Yucky!

df
:(
 
jammerdave said:
Audio quality on the music channels is my biggest gripe with Sirius. I do like a bunch of the various channels, but as a broadcast engineer who prides himself on plant audio quality... EWWWW. They are just cramming way too much stuff in too little bandwidth. Sounds like a mid grade internet stream. The "busier" the music, the worse it gets... Yucky!

df
:(
Click to expand...

at least it doesnt cut out every 30 miles like fm radio which btw sounds even worse with all the over modulation you guys created. sirius sounds fine to me and i consider myself an audiophile. i also have xm. it doesnt sound as good as sirius. right now i am litning to the 129k audio stream of buzzsaw. cd quality! whats that fm stream again..32k yuck!!
 
jammerdave said:
Audio quality on the music channels is my biggest gripe with Sirius. I do like a bunch of the various channels, but as a broadcast engineer who prides himself on plant audio quality... EWWWW.
Click to expand...

Are you using the FM transmitter? I can't believe how horrible the audio quality is using that solution, not to mention the fact that in downstate NY its hard to find a 'truly' empty frequency for very long if your driving.
 
Really surprised! I have had Sirius since last December, and I love the sound quality on the music stations. I will admit I use a cassette adapter, but to me it is better than CD Qualilty for the most part.
 
Nope, running line level to amp. The issues I hear are definatley related to the digital encoding/decoding. I suppose it could be a crappy decoder in my unit. I have a Sirius streamer replay. (blue display/black case) The damn backlight has become intermittant, too... My wife has a different unit, I'll take a listen to that and see if it's any better..

df
 
jammerdave said:
Nope, running line level to amp. The issues I hear are definatley related to the digital encoding/decoding. I suppose it could be a crappy decoder in my unit. I have a Sirius streamer replay. (blue display/black case) The damn backlight has become intermittant, too... My wife has a different unit, I'll take a listen to that and see if it's any better..

df
Click to expand...


are you using a direct connection from sirius to your radio? if so turn off the fm modulator in the menu. and you may need a GLI. i have one on mine. before that it was staticy. now its near cd quality. no static at all!
 
Modulator is off, I don't use it. Like I said, I run line level audio to the amp inputs..

The grungy audio that I hear is indicative of a poor encoding scheme (as in low bitrate)

Lot's of experience there in my biz..

df
 
Drove the rental car from St Louis to Chicago on the Nov 10th. It was just starting to rain in STL, with plenty of lightning static on the AM dial. I remembered the car had Sirius 184 enabled, so I thought I'd check the weather on Sirius.
It did not work. Not once, during the 300 mile drive did I hear anything decode.
Don't the satts work in rainy weather? I was able to hear the AMs' weather from either STL or Chicago, despite some static crashes..
 
Tom Wells said:
Drove the rental car from St Louis to Chicago on the Nov 10th. It was just starting to rain in STL, with plenty of lightning static on the AM dial. I remembered the car had Sirius 184 enabled, so I thought I'd check the weather on Sirius.
It did not work. Not once, during the 300 mile drive did I hear anything decode.
Don't the satts work in rainy weather? I was able to hear the AMs' weather from either STL or Chicago, despite some static crashes..
Click to expand...

antenna problem. my sirius works in tornado weather. it never doesnt work.
 
Tom Wells said:
I remembered the car had Sirius 184 enabled, so I thought I'd check the weather on Sirius.
It did not work. Not once, during the 300 mile drive did I hear anything decode.
Don't the satts work in rainy weather?
Click to expand...

I have no idea what the problem was with that unit, but it is completely atypical. I've driven in heavy downpours, and have had snow and ice piled on my antenna, and I've never noticed a weather-related performance issue (and I don't even have my antenna mounted in accordance with factory recommendations).
As an aside to anyone out there, is it standard for Sirius to have units in rental cars that only work on 184? I say it's better not to have the unit in the cars at all than to allow renters to draw the wrong conclusions about the service based on 184 (one of the most pointless and poorest quality channels on Sirius). Clearly, Tom hasn't been impressed by this freebie.
 
I was more stunned by the idea that lightning QRN was too much for the codec. It WAS working for the 10 days previous.
I woulda figured there was enough buffering and data redundancy to overcome the more-or-less continuous static.
I forgot to check 184 the next day, when I was returning the car, but I bet it worked fine then.
Anyone else have experience with Sirius or XM in really-big electrical stroms?
 
Tom Wells said:
I was more stunned by the idea that lightning QRN was too much for the codec. It WAS working for the 10 days previous.
I woulda figured there was enough buffering and data redundancy to overcome the more-or-less continuous static.
I forgot to check 184 the next day, when I was returning the car, but I bet it worked fine then.
Anyone else have experience with Sirius or XM in really-big electrical stroms?
Click to expand...


i do.. and i have never had a problem. it was the antenna.
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom