Thread: XM radio rant

Originally Posted by blazinlow

I havent noticed any difference, and my system has cajones.

I think the area your in may have something to do with it. I have some friends who have have no complaints. My hearing is pretty good, and I get pretty T'd at some things that others may not notice or hear, so who knows. I still love XM and hope it makes it through the test of time. Right now I'm running a Pioneer XM box through the IP Bus hack drirectly into RCA's. Prior I was running XM-->ipbus---> nie Pioneer HU. The new XM online is pretty sweet, I don't have to have a sep setup in my house, so it saves money, the stream sounds pretty good, maybee even better than my car setup. Go figure!!

From the mouth of one of their very own technicians, The distortion in the audio is for two reasons. The first being that they employ a copy protection feature that supposedly amplifies should you attempt to record the audio output. And of course there is the limited bandwidth.

You will notice that there is no such thing as clean sounding hihats on XM. They are all muddy. You will also notice that the base drums now and then go from a nice boom boom to a pwack. And tthrpough all channels you can sometimes hear the faint sound of compression in the form of that annoying aliased ringing kind a sound. Most prevelant on the channels that require less bandwidth such as the talk channels. On the talk channels it pretty much sounds like a heavily compressed ReadlAudio file. On the music channels it sounds the same only better. Satellite radio definatley is NOT CD quality. The other problem is that if there are tall structures in the way of the signal path you will loose the signal. This includes offic buildings, and really tall mountains. Also I've driven by areas flat as a pancake and still lost signal. Probaly due to area business emitting some time of interefereing signal. I noticed that my microwave also cause the XM to loose signal. So, while you still loose a station, its not permanent as an FNM signal would be on a long drive. YOu dod get used to its flaws on a long drive or when having it in the background while talking with friends though. When the time is right I intend to purchase a nice amount of stock in XM as it will not die. Compare it to AOL. Look at them now(although they are hemeraging) They are huge.
Pete

I should clarify something. I noticed that the "copy prtection" feature is used on the channels that provide the most popular music. Like dance music for example. At least its more prevelant. On the smooth jazz type channels such distortions are not as noticeable and I don recall hearing any on the wayback machine channels.
Pete

Originally Posted by pjanak

I should clarify something. I noticed that the "copy prtection" feature is used on the channels that provide the most popular music. Like dance music for example. At least its more prevelant. On the smooth jazz type channels such distortions are not as noticeable and I don recall hearing any on the wayback machine channels.
Pete

Well at least I know, I'm not crazy. Were they using the Copy pro, a year ago? Thats when it sounded all compressed/ low bit rate.

Originally Posted by Red GTi VR6

Dont get me wrong...

I love what Xm is for (even though they are a clear channel company).

OH christ, not this again....


Say it with me now....

XM IS NOT A CLEAR CHANNEL COMPANY!

They are not owned by Clear Channel! Clear Channel currently owns less than 1% of total XM stock! LESS THAN 1%. GM/Delphi have always been the biggest investors and that won't be changing anytime soon.

Clear Channel used to program some channels on XM when the service first started. Why? Because those channels where nothing but rebroadcasts of Clear Channel FM stations. The last of these was eliminated early last year when XM dropped commercials on music channels. All XM music programming is done in house with the exception of talk programming. Which is the same situation with Sirius.

just to add my 2 cents... xm programming stinks for electronic music.. only 3 channels, 1 of which is always house and the other 2 are trance mixes of tracks 3-4 years old. sirius is much better at keepin up with current music (atleast for electronic).