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Sirius audio...seriously

B

Brian Bowers

I know satellite radio has their own board but I thought this topic was better discussed here. I have been a Sirius subscriber since I think around 2004 (I even had it in my engineering workshop at the 5 station cluster I worked at). I must admit I have enjoyed many hours of programming from Sirius (I myself a current Broadcast Engineer/former DJ that has heard his share of radio programming, having worked in the industry for the past 33 years) . However the one thing that kept me wanting more from Sirius was their audio quality. I went through a number of steps to try and pull out the best of the audio quality that they offered. That means purchasing a Sirius satellite receiver that provided an optical output. I then took this output and connected it to an Optical to SPID/F converter. That was in turn fed to a Flying Cow D-A converter. I then fed the balanced analog output of The Cow to the rest of my home audio system. Did I mention how much I love analog audio? Still, the audio wasn't that great. Even with that chain.

I just recently read on The New York Radio Message Board ( www.nyrmb.com ) that Sirius' and XM's channel lineup had changed (due to the merger and cost cutting reductions of both I'm assuming). No! I eventually landed on Sirius' website and noticed that they had available, streams to listen to on-line. With a few more clicks I noticed that they offered almost all of the music channels in 128K bandwidth. The website went on to inform current subscribers that for an additional dollar or two per month, you could listen to these music streams from almost any computer.

Having a pretty good home system (that is where this is all taking place), I usually will click on the 128K audio, when it is offered as a streaming option. Well! Some of the best (audio quality) digital audio is playing right now on the Sirius music channels. What I am discovering is that Sirius actually has fantastic audio...it just isn't transmitted via the satellite. I don't know why I am surprised at this. I've seen numerous articles on their state of the art studios over the years. However, clicking on the 128K stream breathes new life into their programming. Wow! Again, this has got to be some of the best digital audio I have ever heard (If you have Sirius, try channel 72 - Real Jazz).

I guess all I want to say is, engineering guys/gals at Sirius...nice job on the processing! I love what I hear (and I have set up numerous audio processors in the past). You can really hear the detail on the 128K streams.
 
Brian Bowers said:
I eventually landed on Sirius' website and noticed that they had available, streams to listen to on-line. With a few more clicks I noticed that they offered almost all of the music channels in 128K bandwidth. The website went on to inform current subscribers that for an additional dollar or two per month, you could listen to these music streams from almost any computer.

Having a pretty good home system (that is where this is all taking place), I usually will click on the 128K audio, when it is offered as a streaming option. Well! Some of the best (audio quality) digital audio is playing right now on the Sirius music channels. What I am discovering is that Sirius actually has fantastic audio...it just isn't transmitted via the satellite. I don't know why I am surprised at this. I've seen numerous articles on their state of the art studios over the years. However, clicking on the 128K stream breathes new life into their programming. Wow! Again, this has got to be some of the best digital audio I have ever heard (If you have Sirius, try channel 72 - Real Jazz).
Click to expand...

Thank you Brian, for proving a point that I've been trying to make for some time now... I believe that the future of high quality radio is not in digital broadcast systems such as HD Radio or DAB. The simple reason being that providers/radio stations want to cram as much radio stations in bandwidth-limited channels as possible, regardless of the fact that doing so sacrifices audio quality. I believe the future of the radio is in web streaming because the bandwidth is readily available, relatively affordable and expandable, so it is possible to have high bitrate, high quality streams that can deliver something actually better than FM radio. Simply, there are no physical limitations (only financial) that limit the audio quality, as there are physical limitations in every digital radio broadcasting system in the world. With mobile Internet access already available for some years now, it is only the question of mobile Internet access becoming more affordable (hopefully free) and more widespread used by listeners.

A 128 kbps AAC stream (not aacPlus) sounds excellent, and the even 96 kbps AAC comes very close to delivering artifact free audio experience. In my opinion, noticeably better than what you would get from a 32 kbps aacPlus stream from a satellite radio for example, or in best case 48 kbps aacPlus.

The only question remains is whether listeners care about the audio quality enough to seek higher quality source for their radio experience, provided it is available to them. Which, as you've noticed, is currently a problem because lot of radio people seem to believe listeners don't want and don't need higher audio quality.


Regards,
Goran Tomas
 
I think they are also running some channels as "internet only" due to the limited bandwidth available over the satellite systems. There is additional bandwidth available to them...IIRC, the FCC allocated four 12.5 MHz chunks to satellite radio, but only two of them are in use right now. It would be nice if the merged company could purchase some of that additional bandwidth, but I don't know how much receiver redesign it would take to make it work.

I have yet to buy access to the 128k streams (I don't know how well they would get through the office firewall -- the 32k ones apparently aren't blocked). However, I do have access to the Sirius music channels on Dish Network and have my Dish box hooked up to the stereo. The audio quality is also better over Dish than it is off the Sirius receiver.
 
When I hook up my mobile phone to the car radio and listen to my own 192 kbit/s it sounds much better than any station on the FM band. We don't have satellite radio in The Netherlands (too small) and I guess digital radio won't make big differences. They still don't now if they will launch it or not. I believe that in the UK (one of the early adaptors IIRC) are ditching digital radio. I've said this before in this board but I share Gorans thoughts on the future. Look at how many stations are available on the internet. At great quality too. I rather lay down a few bucks for internet radio in my car thru G3,G4 / Wimax technologies.
 
Sirius-XM also sounds great on my stereo through the optical output on a DirecTv box, much better than either through an XM or Sirius receiver. Unfortunately, they cut back the number of channels on DirecTv as of Wednesday.
 
I've always thought XM's sound quality is a lot better than Sirius. I noticed that after I had both services, especially for music.

If they continue to add more channels, it will pull bandwidth from all the others - and sound quality will go down even more. I'd be for a leaner, meaner list of channels if the sound quality would improve.
 
XM upgraded their codec after they launched and went to the much superior codec that HD Radio is using. Sirius decided they did not want to pay the royalty for the codec and stayed with the old inferior codec. Obviously, they use a different stream via internet.
 
Boy am I glad to see that at least 5 people have noticed. The sound quality was so bad in the car that I only listen for news or talk. Frankly, I think it contributes to churn. Even if consumers don't know WHY they are cancelling, subliminally, they are not getting turned on by the music.
 
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