I had Sirius installed about 3 months ago in my 545i with L7. I was really looking forward to it but it's been a letdown overall. The biggest pill to swallow was the sound quality. It's just so obviously compressed and inferior to CD that I find it unenjoyable to listen to. I'm not some big audiophile but I know crap when I hear it and Sirius sounds like crap.

Another thing-- don't most of you out there think that satellite radio is commercial-free? Wrong. The music stations are commercial free except for self-promoting commercials featuring Sirius products, but the news and talk stations are laced with commercials. I was really looking forward to the FoxNews channel, but I can hardly stand to listen to it because there are SO MANY commercials. And not just regular commercials, mind you. Apparently Sirius thinks that it's listeners are all balding, fat, impotent, unemployed get-rich-quick types because EVERY commercial is for a hair growth product, male 'enhancement' products, bankruptcy stuff, and 'make $10k from your home with no work commercials. I kid you not, it's torture to listen to it.

Note to Sirus--drop half your channels. Uncompress the music channels. Use network standards for commercials. Or I guarantee I am not renewing my subscription-- I don't care if I did pay $750 to get the thing installed.

 

Is Savage on Sirius? He was on XM for a while, one of the reasons I got XM in my last car. He pulled his program off XM, wonder if he did the same on Sirius..

 

Is Savage on Sirius? He was on XM for a while, one of the reasons I got XM in my last car. He pulled his program off XM, wonder if he did the same on Sirius..
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Maybe he followed the advice of all the commercials on satellite and is now working from his home with little or no training for $10k/month guaranteed or your money back. It's like magic ! (I'm not kidding, that's a direct quote from one of the commercials I hear about 10 times per hour on the Fox News station.)

 

They got howard stern on sirius next year
i have xm and i find it to be allrite..kinda bored after a few months hearing the same song over and over again

 

Do you find sirius audio quality worse than a 128 or 192kb MP3 ? Those are compressed as well..

 

Yes it's worse than MP3. Blindfolded I could tell the difference in about 5 seconds or less.

 

Agreed - much worse than MP3 - maybe like MP3 at 32kb (if it goes that low). I also dropped Sirius due to dropped signal. I had the unit checked by the dealer. I live in NC and we have lots of trees. In the 1/2 mile trek from my house to a significant road (in a suburban development), I would lose signal 2-3 times. There is nothing more annoying that blasting a good song on L7 and having it cut to zero for 1-2 seconds. I also have problems near the airport and under the more significant underpasses.

The commercials are absurd - I can't listen to any of those stations. Radio is better - seems like less commercials.

So I am a non subscriber after my first year despite paying $600 for the option.

To all those out there living in "the forest" or anywhere with high trees - don't waste your money on this option. BTW - I have perfect cell coverage everywhere I drive (totally diff tech) but it shows that I am not in some "Hole" that some of you might think.

I am so dissappointed in this "technology" that I am going short on their stock. There is no way the average person will accept this long term.....

 

The reason channels like Fox News have commercials is because it's simply the television audio signal being sent to the car. What do you want them to do when the TV broadcast goes to commercial, give you dead air?

Neither Sirius nor XM have made any money since their respective launches. I really can't blame them for throwing in commercials on the channels that take commercial breaks if it helps them pay the bills.

As far as sound quality goes, I've found that some channels are highly compressed but some are not. Overall, I think you'll find a better across the board sound quality on XM but I'm not ready to bail out on Sirius just because the compress mostly news/talk channels to give them bandwidth for some of the other music channels.

Also, I'm not a huge Howard Stern fan but I'm sure I'll check him out and see what he'll be up to once he hits the microwaves...

 

I never got into SIRIUS (predated my BMW ownership by a couple of years) for the music. 99% of my listening is spoken word, either Old Time Radio or football. Compression not an issue for me on spoken word. Three subscriptions and will stick with them as long as the keep those two areas going. I also will not use MP3 cds often. Prefer full capability of original (or dupes) CDs. Only use MP3 in iPOd like player or on CD (if/when I get it) for long trips. ANd it is obvious to me that the news/sports feeds are nothing more than what those networks normally broadcast so I would not expect anything different for Sat Radio as Rudy noted.

 

Very interesting post. I was regretting not getting the Sat prep (for future sat install), but after reading this post, I don't regret it as much.

Didn't realize the music sound quality was that bad.