Stern Audio

[PatClark]

Anyone else catch Stern this morning on Sirius? I did, and I always felt that his audio feed on WCKG was a little muddy/bad quality, well this trend has continued onto Sirius. Any engineer's have a theory on this? Is this Stern's choice? Just wondering, I figured that after I spent my $12.95 a month I would get CD quality sound.

Or maybe just it's all these years of jacking up the Sony MDR-V600's that have done my hearing wrong! lol<P ID="edit"><FONT class="small">Edited by PatClark on 01/10/06 05:46 AM.</FONT></P>

 

[chris]

That's just how Sirius sounds. It doesn't sound that great in my opinion. If you flip around you will notice that all of the channels sound like that. They all sound like 64 Kbps Mp3 quality. That's the one thing I don't like about it. FM radio sounds better than Sirius.

Ehhhh....

:-(

Chris

> Anyone else catch Stern this morning on Sirius? I did, and I
> always felt that his audio feed on WCKG was a little
> muddy/bad quality, well this trend has continued onto
> Sirius. Any engineer's have a theory on this? Is this
> Stern's choice? Just wondering, I figured that after I spent
> my $12.95 a month I would get CD quality sound.
>
> Or maybe just it's all these years of jacking up the Sony
> MDR-V600's that have done my hearing wrong! lol
>

 

[itsjjski]

Also sounds like the higher numbered channels are worse than the lower ones.

Is this a bandwith issue? Doesnt HD radio have the same problem?

> That's just how Sirius sounds. It doesn't sound that great
> in my opinion. If you flip around you will notice that all
> of the channels sound like that. They all sound like 64
> Kbps Mp3 quality. That's the one thing I don't like about
> it. FM radio sounds better than Sirius.
>
> Ehhhh....
>
> :-(
>
> Chris
>
> > Anyone else catch Stern this morning on Sirius? I did, and
> I
> > always felt that his audio feed on WCKG was a little
> > muddy/bad quality, well this trend has continued onto
> > Sirius. Any engineer's have a theory on this? Is this
> > Stern's choice? Just wondering, I figured that after I
> spent
> > my $12.95 a month I would get CD quality sound.
> >
> > Or maybe just it's all these years of jacking up the Sony
> > MDR-V600's that have done my hearing wrong! lol
> >
>

 

[k9ez]

> Also sounds like the higher numbered channels are worse than
> the lower ones.
>
> Is this a bandwith issue? Doesnt HD radio have the same
> problem?
>

The satellite channels are limited in bandwidth. The more channels they offer the worse the audio gets. Seems like satellite is willing to forgo audio quality to cram more channels on.

HD will always have better sound. Even adding HD2 (and 3) HD will have better sound. HD is limited at this point to HD3. HD3 is limtied in audio quality, typically to an "AM" sound. I am still amazed at how good HD2 sounds, even with the theorectical "limited" bandwidth.


> > That's just how Sirius sounds. It doesn't sound that
> great
> > in my opinion. If you flip around you will notice that
> all
> > of the channels sound like that. They all sound like 64
> > Kbps Mp3 quality. That's the one thing I don't like about
>
> > it. FM radio sounds better than Sirius.
> >
> > Ehhhh....
> >
> > :-(
> >
> > Chris
> >
> > > Anyone else catch Stern this morning on Sirius? I did,
> and
> > I
> > > always felt that his audio feed on WCKG was a little
> > > muddy/bad quality, well this trend has continued onto
> > > Sirius. Any engineer's have a theory on this? Is this
> > > Stern's choice? Just wondering, I figured that after I
> > spent
> > > my $12.95 a month I would get CD quality sound.
> > >
> > > Or maybe just it's all these years of jacking up the
> Sony
> > > MDR-V600's that have done my hearing wrong! lol
> > >
> >
>

 

[jeffryan]

> > Also sounds like the higher numbered channels are worse
> than
> > the lower ones.
> >
> > Is this a bandwith issue? Doesnt HD radio have the same
> > problem?
> >
>
> The satellite channels are limited in bandwidth. The more
> channels they offer the worse the audio gets. Seems like
> satellite is willing to forgo audio quality to cram more
> channels on.

Sirius (and XM for that matter) intentionally use less bandwidth on the talk channels as opposed to the music channels, for obvious reasons. Most of the higher channels are talk channels, so that would explain why they sound worse.

 

[itsjjski]

In XM, still sounds like 81 BPM sounds a lot worse that 20 on 20, or any of the other channels at least up to 30.


> > > Also sounds like the higher numbered channels are worse
> > than
> > > the lower ones.
> > >
> > > Is this a bandwith issue? Doesnt HD radio have the same
> > > problem?
> > >
> >
> > The satellite channels are limited in bandwidth. The more
>
> > channels they offer the worse the audio gets. Seems like
> > satellite is willing to forgo audio quality to cram more
> > channels on.
>
> Sirius (and XM for that matter) intentionally use less
> bandwidth on the talk channels as opposed to the music
> channels, for obvious reasons. Most of the higher channels
> are talk channels, so that would explain why they sound
> worse.
>

 

[ajhenderson]

> The satellite channels are limited in bandwidth. The more
> channels they offer the worse the audio gets. Seems like
> satellite is willing to forgo audio quality to cram more
> channels on.

Of course; without having an Ethiopian reggae channel, how could they claim they're better than terrestrial radio? "We have more variety!" Read: more crap that isn't on the radio because no one would care. I too notice quality issues on XM, but even the 40s channel on 4 sounds like it could be better. Then again, I realize the fact that I'm using the built-in wireless FM transmitter degrades the audio to some degree. But still, I can get regional FMs that don't come in with stereo to sound better than many of my XM channels.