Sirius/XM audio quality

[MichganMan]

I thought there would be some breakthrough in technology by now that would improve the audio quality on satellite radio. It has always sounded so hollow to me. Howard 100/101 does sound a little better than other channels. Is it possible they are giving them a bit more bandwidth?

[MWmetalhead]

The receiver used makes a big difference.

My current vehicle has much better audio quality than my prior one.

Howard 100 is indeed allocated extra bandwidth based on what I've read.

[Scooter]

I thought there would be some breakthrough in technology by now that would improve the audio quality on satellite radio. It has always sounded so hollow to me. Howard 100/101 does sound a little better than other channels. Is it possible they are giving them a bit more bandwidth?

Speech sounds especially poor on satellite radio. I would bandwidth limit talk radio to about 10 kHz and increase music channels BW. My 2019 Equinox sounds way better than my 2011 Taurus, so it is improving over time.

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[WOHO]

SXM is operated by morons, well, they're not Cumulus yet, but sure as hell were a lot better when it was XM and Sirius separate. What is stupid as all hell is that a decade later they still have almost every single SAT channel duplicated on BOTH formats. Why they don't make a true merger and merge both the Sirius and XM premerger bandwidths into one pot, and use the SXM transmission methods (XM) across the board is beyond me. I think another sh*tstorm is coming this month too as SXM has announced that The Bridge is 'moving' and they've already moved Willy and Escape and 50's and 60's to less desirable locations. Having high quality audio would be nice, wouldn't it, like when XM used 48K for music channels and two channels (Fine Tuning) used much more BW and even had freaking surround sound back in 2002.
Yes, part of Howard's suck-off by Mel Karmazin, besides the half-billion dollars, was that Howie would be Channel 100, wide bandwidth stereo. 101, not so much so.

[MWmetalhead]

They can't do what you described due to incompatibility of older receivers still in use. It is necessary to duplicate the channels on both sets of radio frequencies as a result.

I will agree with you that moving The Bridge to a different channel number is goofy, although it is worth noting presets will update to the new channel number automatically on most receivers, I believe.

Relegating Deep Tracks to the 300s is an even more controversial move. Listenership to that channel must be on the low side.

Audio sounds pretty good on some newer generation receivers. In many cases, I prefer how the audio sounds on SXM in my 2023 vehicle to either analog FM or HD FM. FM processing sounds mediocre to flat out awful on too many of my local stations these days. I will say the iHM stations by far are the best sounding from a processing standpoint locally. Hats off to their engineering folks.

[Scooter]

Does anyone else have problems streaming SiriusXM on Google Home? It hiccups and skips constantly.

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[tivoking]

Streaming SiriusXM from your phone sounds very good. It sounds like 256kbps or 320kbps MP3 quality to me if you set it to maximum quality.

[tivoking]

Does anyone else have problems streaming SiriusXM on Google Home? It hiccups and skips constantly.

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I have never had issues with streaming SiriusXM for years. I have had issues with with my small Google home speaker streaming with a Bluetooth connection. It would cut out at times, but my earbuds never have.

[Plate Cap]

Great thread and discussion.

I usually stream to my phone, then via the USB into the truck. Great audio that way, and many, many more channels. I don't use the receiver in the truck much unless it's a quick trip.

As for Scooter's comment, you can stream ONE song from an "app only" to Google Home, and it stops. Not terribly reliable otherwise.

[MWmetalhead]

Many smart TVs and Roku come with an SXM app.

Audio quality is decent. It's a little too punchy and unnatural for me to consider it ideal.

Yamaha Musiccast for their line of home theater receivers also offers it. The Musiccast app was terrible for the first few years but these days works quite well. What's nice with Musiccast is I don't need to worry about Bluetooth drop outs and can very easily switch between SXM channels.

[tivoking]

TV and Roku Apps don't allow to set the quality to maximum, at least they didn't in the past. With the mobile app you can. It's 100x better than the standard SiriusXM radios in cars. I have never listened to a SiriusXM 360L or Tour model.

[syntheticexctasy]

Came here to throw in my 0.02

back in the day when both were fresh, I had sirius AND XM. XM always had better audio quality, and it seems as though the OEMs have figured out a way to smooth out the crappy audio a bit using factory audio systems. I used to locate and map the XM and Sirius ground repeaters...why? because I was bored I guess, and the info wasn't readily available at the time. When the two started out and had significantly less channels, the audio quality was *better*

Fast forward to today, and I Still have sirius in both of my 2015 MY vehicles. Both currently operating from a trial because the content itself is not really worth paying for - it's all the same recycled 100 or 200 song list on every channel. No b-sides or literally anything other than top hits. Stupid.

My GM vehicle which is branded XM has audio quality on par with just about any aftermarket receiver.

My Ford vehicle which is branded Sirius has much better audio quality.

The bitrate on ALL channels has always sucked even compared with analog FM. It's only gotten worse while trying to cram in more content.