SiriusXM audio quality

[jnicho1]

Anyone else think the audio quality of Sirius is terrible? I've read that they compress the s out of the audio signal. It sounds almost like AM in my car and I have the B&O option - had to cancel it. I guess it's worth it if you are in your car for long distances or listen to talk radio.

[14S4GWM]

It's definitely compressed, but doesn't sound to bad. Mine does not sound like AM at all. Try refreshing the signal.

[plat]

In order to stuff more channels in their transmission bandwidth (pipeline), the digital signals use very low bit rates. I find the quality of Sirius is comparable to the standard FM broadcast. Definitely not high quality music. I chose not to renew my Sirius subscription. I just use my iPod Touch as a permanent music vault in my car.

[Silverbullet S4]

It's notoriously and universally crappy. Some stations are better/worse than others but overall it's poor. Refreshing signal shouldn't do anything...it's either connected and broadcasting or it's not. The higher the quality audio system you have, the more noticeable it is just how poor the audio quality is...

[SteveYem]

Anyone else think the audio quality of Sirius is terrible? I've read that they compress the s out of the audio signal. It sounds almost like AM in my car and I have the B&O option - had to cancel it. I guess it's worth it if you are in your car for long distances or listen to talk radio.

In general I agree with you when it comes to all of the music stations. For the most part it reminds me of streaming audio via RealPlayer on a DSL connection in my college dorm room...compressed, frequently garbled, distant and tinny. That being said, the quality does seem to vary from channel to channel....to my ears, the sound quality for Alt Nation is leaps and bounds clearer and more full than that of Watercolors (a jazz music channel). Meanwhile, Howard100 almost always has excellent sound quality.
Something tells me the resources (bandwidth I guess?) allotted to each channel goes in direct proportion to its popularity....Howard 100, Hits 1 (or is it now Hits 2?), and Alt Nation are popular and have decent sound quality, while Watercolors is a smooth jazz channel probably with a much smaller audience and has crappy quality.

When Howard retires, I'm cancelling my subscription without hesitation.

[onlyaudis]

Sirius its a joke and I do not know how they are even still in business. I got a free trial, and the quality was like a bad 1970's car stereo. I let it expire and just use the SD cards to load a lot of my music lists. Wish there was a way to get Pandora without having to hook a phone up.

[blaksnake]

I was thinking about this the other day. After my free 3 month trial I will not be renewing. My wife's 2014 Jeep plays the Apple lossless format on her SD player and it sounds incredible. I wish my SD card player could play those files! Anyone know the highest quality format our systems can read and playback?

[14S4GWM]

^ I forget what it is but it's in the manual

[mungie]

I'm convinced it's the receiver in our cars. I believe it's the XM-type receiver.
My 2012 G37X and my father's QX60 have the Sirius-type receivers and sound much better than the one in my 2013 S4.

[onlyaudis]

I run my MP3 files through a program called MP3 Gain pro, and it "normalizes" them so the volume is way more equal between songs gotten from various sources, and the sound quality is pretty damn good with my 10 inch 500W sub in the rear cubby.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/mp3gain/

[blackjak]

I must not be an audiophile but I think it sounds great...BPM and Sirius Chill channels 51 and 53 all day and night.

[miztahsparklez]

Some stations sound better than others. But the quality is not cd quality. It's a touch above fm, but below HD radio.


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[jachien]

sat radio uses a ton of compression. the audio quality definitely is not there. different radio stations sound different depending on broadcast volume. for example, if you can commute regularly between san francisco and los angeles, you can notice the difference between the radio stations qualities with SF radio stations sounding better than LA. I never renewed my siriusxm subscription but pretty tempted to just for convenience factor esp during the drives between las vegas and los angeles where there really isnt anything in between, much less cellular coverage.

[blaksnake]

^ I forget what it is but it's in the manual

Yeah, 320kbps is the max. Much better than XM though. Wish they had a higher quality option.

[jygesq]

classical music stations are bad>sound quality is dismal . listen onetime when sirius was free.

[SDBolts]

I didn't renew my SiriusXM subscription because I felt the audio quality sucked compared to streaming services like Slacker or Pandora, let alone my own music collection on my phone. (256gb micro SD Card FTW if you want to have a LOT of music on your phone...)

I miss the traffic in the nav system, but outside of that, I don't really miss Sirius.

[onlyaudis]

you can pay a few bucks a month to Sirius for just the traffic and not the music. I did that for a year. Now my wife is usually with me with her I phone, and the google traffic is better, so I seldom even use my in car GPS even though I updated to 2016 maps from the guy on the forum.

[protogeoff]

Sirius audio is terrible due to the compression. You'll hear it most in the higher frequencies of what you're listening to... where the compression causes a massive loss of detail, definition and texture.
Get an iPod cable and just plug one of these Bluetooth adapters in and stream away from your phone. The quality if good and you've got access to everything on the net through your phone and data plan.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B017RVHSSQ/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1483549565&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=coolstream+audi+bluetooth+adapter&dpPl=1&dpID=41ED%2BB8VVtL&ref=plSrch

V1Rotate

[SwankP3RF3ct10n]

I must not be an audiophile but I think it sounds great...BPM and Sirius Chill channels 51 and 53 all day and night.

Word... I have no issues with quality listening to BPM, Venus, etc. Boots and pants and boots and pants... lol

[chopz33]

i enjoy mine

[VandyZ]

In general it is not great, but I did discover (i bought pre-owned) that the B&O sound settings are distinct for each source and whoever had it before me had the surround all the way up and some other things out of wack for the sat radio input. Once i changed the sound settings it sounded better enough to renew for their 6 months for $25 (twice now).

[moophone]

yes its complete and utter garbage. I stopped listening to it two days into my free trial. the lowest bitrate mp3 sounds better than that crap.


Anyone else think the audio quality of Sirius is terrible? I've read that they compress the s out of the audio signal. It sounds almost like AM in my car and I have the B&O option - had to cancel it. I guess it's worth it if you are in your car for long distances or listen to talk radio.

[Silverbullet S4]

.... enough to renew for their 6 months for $25 (twice now).

I did that for awhile as well but got sick of dealing with them and the auto-renew at full price. You can always get them back down to $25 for 6 months but it turned into more of a hassle than it was worth.

[torinalth]

same, its just not good quality. several years ago I was wondering this same thing and a sing happened to come on that I had in my CD player. the difference was so vast that I could no longer justify it. cancelled it immediately and started using pandora. not as good as CD, but better than the stations I was listening to on Sirius and for WAY cheaper (bought the upgraded version) been happy ever since, more or less. Sirius just need to cut stations again to expand bandwidth per each station or upgrade their hardware. if DirecTV can offer 4k video now, sirius can offer HD audio as well. no excuses.

[Helmet165]

I noticed it a *little* with my last car (Saab 9-3 Aero with the 11 speaker system) but with the B&O in the S4 it's aggravatingly bad. I love the comedy stations though so I can't bring myself to dump it, but when I really want to listen to music (more than just low in the background) I just stream Spotify, it sounds 10X better.

[nevets77]

I've been an audiophile for decades. I thought it was just me being overly sensitive to bad quality . But when my wife commented on the poor sound I knew it had to be bad...