Previous posts on the sound quality. I've done a number of searches and most of the posts I've read have been from 2005 or early 2006. Has anyone noticed improving sound quality over time?

 

I have not noticed any change in sound quality, but then I have never had a complaint about it. Is it CD quality, no. Is it comparable to FM, yes, at least in my experience. I do not enjoy my Sirius for a step-up in quality, the selling point is the content. No commercials and a huge assortment of stations for all musical, sports and talk show tastes.

 

I used to get XM on my other car but cancelled it because the stations I listened to received less bandwidth (so they sounded horrible) than the more popular channels (which sounded great).

I haven't listened to SIRIUS so I don't know if they slice bandwidth the same way.

 

Don't know either but I recall talk on this forum of some channels receiving less bandwidth. It was mainly the talk channels as I recall; Fox, CNN, BBC etc...

 

Thanks all for the responses.

 

I have Sirius in my 2006 E60, and in general, I think it sucks.

The sound quality on most stations could be compared to an MP3 recorded at about 64kbs, which means you hear all sorts of distortion from the digital compression. It sounds tinny and well, bad. Substantially lower quality than FM radio. The signal also drops whenever I drive under a tree, bridge, next to a building etc - which is to say it constantly drops. Now that spring is here it gets worse (seriously) since the trees have leaves on them which blocks their weak signal even further.

I'm also unimpressed by the content. I get annoyed with FM radio playing the same 20 songs over and over, and I had hoped Sirius would be an opportunity for me to be exposed to new music. Nope, they just play their choice of 20 songs over and over.

My next car will not have Sirius unless they make some substantial improvement to their product. Hope this helps.

 

Have heard others comment on the drop outs. Again not my experience. I can even pick up the signal in my concrete parking garage, so needless to say I don't lose the signal driving under a tree. I wonder if that fact that the Sirius satellites are not in geo-synchronis orbit causes the drop out problems in some geographic areas? Could this also affect the signal quality and therefore the sound quality? Because my quality is pretty good, though again, not CD quality.

As for unit's comment on content, not with out merit. But it is so easy to swtich to another Sirius channel that will be playing something I want to hear vs. the three FM rock channels in town that are all playing their string of 5 commercials at the same time. And forget it if you spend a lot of time traveling the highways, where trying to find something on the radio is a crap shoot at best. Ultimately I think the iPod adaptor solution is the best solution for hearing exactly what you want to hear, with reasonable quality.

 

Sirius has a "High-Quality" broadcast option for internet listening but I'm not sure about the availability via the satellite. I have Sirius for the content. On another note, a cool feature on my wife's new Suburban and XM satellite is you can program the stations you like the best via the touch screen and the stations can be a combo of XM, FM, and AM without having to i-drive out of one format to another!

 

For me, the lack of commercials makes Sirius worthwhile. With regard to sound fidelity, it is fine given that you will always have road noise and such in the background.

 

For me the iPod option is preferable. I have 36 days of music accessable and if I get bored with it, I change the selections that I download to the iPod.

I rip my CDs at 196kbs - AAC coding. That sounds good to my ears in the car or at home.

If I want just background music, I can write the iTunes radio channels to disk.

I can play what I want on my iPod when I choose.