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XM Music Channels Switching to MONO

Music stations on XM in mono. Truly amazing. This is 2012 with dozens of stations on the Internet available in stereo. 40's on 4, I could see. Jonathan Schwartz does play new versions of old songs on his show, and having them in mono is pitiful. I remember when all those Beautiful Music stations were everywhere..all showcasing those instrumentals in glorious stereo. Escape is now in mono on XM,as is the 50's on 5.

XM probably thinks listeners won't notice the difference. I don't listen to Escape anymore,because of the mono switch and my time listening to 5 has been reduced. I really hope this is the extent of the stereo to mono conversions. Please leave Siriusly Sinatra and 60s on 6 alone!

I'm glad I have a lifetime subscription. I couldn't imagine paying these days. What the hell are these idiots at XM thinking?
 
I thought maybe it was a hardware issue too, so I went out and wasted money on a new Edge radio; still mono; disgusting that nobody at SXM will repond to my questions about how they selected the stations that they did for mono.
 
I'm sure customer service doesn't any knowledge about it. Why should they? It's not really their job to know the technical aspects of the service and I'm sure the higher ups aren't passing the information down... what for?

I'll be cancelling very soon. I have noticed mono on some channels. SiriusXM has gotten really bad over the last few years. I'm a stickler for audio quality, bad enough all the channels sound like they are playing low quality mp3's now switching to mono.. I'm done.
 
One letter in the US Mail, a couple of emails, then 3 calls to their English speaking customer service (one was in Canada in Atlantic time zone) - and all they could offer me was to contact the programming department about the new MONO audio channels.

Told them that wasn't good enough and had to wait 24 minutes on hold to cancel my XM subscription - then they had the nerve to ask why - I told them to look at my account and the emails - then they said - 'Oh, no stereo on XM69, audio quality'? Yes. XM cancelled after 8 years. Now all I have is the swirly Sirius stereo that came with the car for a year for free, so in 3 months, that's gone too.

Too bad; XM used to be great when Lee Abrams programmed the music and they had 40Kb STEREO audio on the music channels.

Give me a call when Mel leaves, John Malone hires Lee Abrams and the music channels are in stereo and have live dayparts!
 
JohnnyElectron said:
Told them that wasn't good enough and had to wait 24 minutes on hold to cancel my XM subscription - then they had the nerve to ask why - I told them to look at my account and the emails - then they said - 'Oh, no stereo on XM69, audio quality'? Yes. XM cancelled after 8 years.
Click to expand...

At least you had them acknowledge something. I voiced my concerns many times about numerous issues before I finally dumped them, and no one bothered to listen or even care. All they wanted was my credit card number so they could continue to renew my subscription automatically each 3 months. The only way I was able to stop the service and billing was when the card expired and they could no longer charge anything to it. Then they threatened collection for one month they ended up not being able to bill me for. I told them it was on their shoulders not to give me service without pre-payment and I never heard anymore from them again. They are a joke when it comes to anything even remotely resembling customer service.
 
To tell you the truth I haven't noticed if the channels are mono or stereo but I HAVE noticed that when they play 60's tunes like The Beatles you only get one side of the stereo signal. I've heard this on both The Underground garage and 60's on 6. It is very noticeable on that early stereo stuff, all they had was maybe three tracks to begin with and all the vocals would be on one side and the basic track would be on the other. I have heard songs with no drums, no lead guitar, no background vocals etc. I have noticed this for at least a year but kept forgetting to post it here to see if anyone else had noticed it. I'm not sure if this is related to them broadcasting in mono or not but suspect it is. If so what they are doing is broadcasting only one side, at least they could blend two channels to mono if they have to broadcast in mono.
 
OK I just checked last night and all the music channels are in mono and I think it has been a lot longer than 2 months. I would also be willing to be that only one channel is coming through both left and right channels. As I wrote above you can tell with a lot of the early 60's stereo recordings. I heard Tobacco Road by The Nashville Teens yesterday on Underground Garage and only one side of the stereo recording came out of both the left and right channels.
 
KB1OKL said:
OK I just checked last night and all the music channels are in mono and I think it has been a lot longer than 2 months. I would also be willing to be that only one channel is coming through both left and right channels. As I wrote above you can tell with a lot of the early 60's stereo recordings. I heard Tobacco Road by The Nashville Teens yesterday on Underground Garage and only one side of the stereo recording came out of both the left and right channels.
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Synphony Hall XM channel 76 may be the exception to the rule; listening to it a few minutes in the car earlier today and definately heard stereo separation. I did finally get the online service and play it through my iPod at home and the sound quallity is much better on all the channels; on XM Channel 82, Classic Radio, Old Time Radio; the sound is much brighter and current ads are in stereo; in fact it sounds as though even a few of the old programs have been dititalized and now in a minimal stereo mode or at least Hi-Fi instead of a muddled sound.

drt,
st. petersburg,fl
 
Well folks, I got hosed. I sent back my XM radio and got hit with a $75 fine for cancelling service before my 3 months were up, but I told them "No stereo on Escape, then I don't want it".
Now I just read on another board that they have at least (temporarily) restored stereo to not only Escape 69, but 50's on 5 and Pop2K. So I maybe I made my point, but took a bullet for it. Would have been cheaper to keep the damn radio and wait out the 3 months - lesson learned.
 
JohnnyElectron said:
Well folks, I got hosed. I sent back my XM radio and got hit with a $75 fine for cancelling service before my 3 months were up......
Click to expand...

And that folks, is how Sirius manages to stay in business and make money.
 
I heard another early 70's stereo tune with only one channel coming out of both sides of my XM car radio the other day, now I know why XM sounds like krap, one channel is missing, the music channels aren't even in mono they are in half-eo.
 
If I hadn't purchased the lifetime subscription years ago, I too would have told them to take a hike... but I'll keep it until I die.....Maybe with Mel gone, it will get a bit better, but I doubt it...
 
We suspect that, in some cases, the left and right are slightly out of phase to simulate stereo.
 
flwfg said:
If I hadn't purchased the lifetime subscription years ago, I too would have told them to take a hike... but I'll keep it until I die.....Maybe with Mel gone, it will get a bit better, but I doubt it...
Click to expand...

When a new company takes over it never gets better.
 
Does anyone have an oscilloscope or digital equivalent with a Left minus Right display (one channel to the vertical input, the other to the horizontal)?
I dragged some headphones out and listened to Escape and some other channels.
There was some separation but the L-R material has taken as much of a beating as the L+R.
An interesting thing I remember from the early days of XM is that on the channels to which I listened, the Stereo pilot from my pnp would go out when the announcer was talking between songs and sometimes it would return only after a second or two of the next song, but it was nice and wide.
 
I have noticed the past few days that the music channels are back in stereo and sound better than they have in a long time or at least the ones I have listened to: 50's on 5, 60's on 6, 70's on 7 and Underground Garage (of which I would paid just to get by itself).
 
Does anyone know how long Cousin Brucie's contract is? or will he be leaving when liberty media takes over? I am keeping my subscription as long as possible while it is still good enough for me. once they go like music choice I am gone.
 
I just checked some of the suspect channels. I used 3 different radios: Audiophase Skybox, Samsung Helix & Audiovox (I think) XMP3. Here's what I found

50s were stereo on all radios.
Pop2K was stereo on the Helix & the XMP3, but not on the Skybox.
Escape was stereo all round.
Both Kids Place Live & Radio Disney weren't stereo on any of the radios.

I got the Skybox on the last day of a garage sale. I bought a few things & talked them into throwing it in for nothing. I'm pleasantly surprised that everything works well on it.
 
The XM Skybox has damn nice sound as you get a really wide swing to adjust the bass and treble to make it decent. The FM is deaf with that little 6 inch fancy antenna. Paid $180 for it from BestBuy way back when my 'tween' just had to have Radio Disney (and it was stereo then) and before they put RD on a 50KW AM station. CD player/lid switch is the only other problem with it beside the remote having to be aiming directly at the unit to work, but the display is nice and big and sound is great.
Using it outside, you don't need an antenna, you just flip up the CD cover as it has a built-in antenna in the lid!
 
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