XM Radio Sound Quality

[Sarius]

My tuner just died and in looking for a replacement I noticed the Marantx ST-7001 which offers XM in addition to the usual AM/FM. This is for my Parasound/Thiel system so I'm looking for decent sound quality.

Looking at the XM website I see that it features CT-aacPlus audio encoding with Neural Audio optimization which uses a "stereo transcoder" algorithm. Like Wow, sounds like it was created by ex-high end cable designers. I wonder if it aligns quantum flux too?

They do claim that it offers "superior sound quality remarkably close to Compact Disc". I'm very impressed by the 'remarkably close' claim.

I do like the idea of having a lot of commercial/yak yak free music to listen to, if the sound quality is indeed decent, but my system is unforgiving of poor sources.

So my question to the forum to anyone who has been using XM at home through a good system. How good is the sound actually?

Thanks

 

[hemiram]

A friend has it, and it sounds....ok, not all that great, IMO. The sampling rate of both XM and Sirius is too low to equal a good FM station, let alone CD. I have a fairly expensive set up in my truck, that sounds really great playing CDs and the two really decent sounding local FM stations. I would say that Sirius is slightly worse than the average stations, and XM is just slightly better sounding than Sirius (I borrowed an external XM receiver for a week, I have Sirius built in) . If you have any 128K rate MP3s on your PC, they are about equal to XM, IMO. Sirius doesn't sound quite as good as XM, IMO.

At 65+ MPH, they sound ok, in the house, ok as background music, nothing more.

 

[Sleestack]

So my question to the forum to anyone who has been using XM at home through a good system. How good is the sound actually?

Thanks

It is horrible. I say that with no reservation. It's fine if you just want to use it to explore new types of music or listen to sports, but artifacts are readily evident and are simply intolerable through any decent system at moderate volumes. Of course, poeple have different tolerances.

 

[gene]

Here is my opinion:

Dumbing Down of Audio

 

[footman]

xm ound quality

Axiom M-80 bi-amped with Yamaha 3300 and Yamaha M-65 power amp. At this moment I am listening to Keb Mo on XM Bluesville and it sounds fine to me. I do consider myself a critical listener maybe not overly sophisticated but XM is a change of pace and their programming is first rate.

 

[mytzen]

This article came out a while ago and hopefully they will implement 5.1 on all of their music channels soon. Im not sure what bitrate it is playing at.

http://www.xmradio.com/newsroom/screen/pr_2005_12_28.html

 

[Geno]

I have Sirius on Dish Network and listen to it occasionally. Sounds fine as background music, but for critical listening is, IMHO, pretty ho-hum sound quality. I do like the programming, however. Also, I wouldn't even consider subscribing - not enough value or sound quality over free FM. Of course, that's just my opinion...I'm frequently wrong.

 

[hemiram]

I would pay for Howard Stern alone on Sirius alone, the music and comedy channels are a bonus. I only listen to music when there's nothing on the comedy channel I like, or haven't hear 100 times before, or when Howard has some lame singer or group as a guest, or it's a rerun I've heard to the point of remembering the dialog word for word.

But in general, it sounds pretty bad.

 

[ironlung]

If you have any 128K rate MP3s on your PC, they are about equal to XM, IMO. Sirius doesn't sound quite as good as XM, IMO.

At 65+ MPH, they sound ok, in the house, ok as background music, nothing more.

I think they would be lucky to sound as good as a 128bit MP3. Sirius sounds like a transistior radio playing inside a tin can to me.

 

[Sarius]

Thanks Everyone,

Nix on the XM. Parasound T3 it will be.

 

[Rock&Roll Ninja]

Both XM and Sirius "broadcast" 64kbps MP3's. (and who knows if those are even legally owned!?)

 

[Hi Ho]

I really wish they would up the sound quality of both services. I used to listen to Sirrius online when they first came about. Their online stream was free, 128k MP3. It sounded pretty damn good. They had (and still do) an excellent bluegrass station.

Then, they revoked the free internet stream. Not only that, but they lowered the quality to 32k!!! Even for subscribers. Uh... No thanks.

If they would up the quality of the satellite and internet streams to at least 128k I would be happy. It would be just fine for the car and even at home listening (not critical, of course).

 

[pbryant]

Is this progress?

OK. I've got a really good stereo set up at home. XM sounds like a cross between short wave, early streaming media audio, and at best -- like AM radio (with stereo).

As a former broadcast engineer, I would have gotten fired and had my commercial license revoked by the FCC for putting that kind of raw unprocessed sewage on the air.

There's enormous intermodulation distortion, random phasing between stereo channels, audible sampling artifacts, and the kind of flanging artifacts that one usually only hears while listening to short wave broadcasts bouncing off the ionosphere. Nasty, very nasty. I can't stand to listen to anything but plain speech in talk programs, and even those are of a quality that would get me to switch cell phone providers were it arriving over the phone.

Although no one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public, I'd be more inclined to short sell XM's stock. I can't believe people listen to this crap.

 

[samNOISE]

64KB/s

Rock N Roll Ninja:

Did you read the 64KB/s spec' in a publication or measure it yourself?

Andrew D.