The XM sound quality on my 04 TL is terrible. It definitely sounds worse then FM... It almost reminds me of music being played on AM. Is this normal?

 

Definitely not cd quality, but i wouldn't say worse then FM. I do notice sometimes it does get a little hazy but not that often.

My 3 month trial is up and the end of the month, just got the usaspec installed not sure if i will keep it.

 

XM is better than am/fm, but not as good as cd. It does depend on the channel you are listening to as well... what channel is that? Also if you feel that it is bad, you could have the tuner or antenna replaced under warranty.

 

I've noticed that XM sound quality is REALLY hit and miss. While some stuff sounds great, other times it almost sounds as if someone cranked up the center speaker and reduced the rest. I'm not sure if I'm going to keep it after my trial either. Need to see if I can get just the XM traffic without the XM music and how much it would cost.

 

I agree, XM is not as good as playing a CD or the i-pod through the Aux link...

 

XM is basically "HBO radio". They're not going for sound quality, they're banking on you not wanting to hear any more commercials. They hope you're tired of hearing commercials and you want to take advantage of "more music" opportunities. Plus, with the specialized stations they offer, you get more of the types of music you like. The only problem with that is that it's not localized to your community-if that matters to you. For me, I like to know what's happening in my city and to keep abreast of what's going on. XM cannot do that for you. If you want XM for the music variety, it's a great option.

It will be interesting to see what we'll get for our cars once the XM and Sirius merger take effect. I'm wondering if we'll see any difference with the station offerings for our cars.

 

Same with my experience with XM and Sirius, neither of them sounds great. You'll get some channels that sound really really good but others sound muted and tone weak. The FM stations in the Charlotte area come in WAY more clear than my XM.

 

I know this problem isn't normal for Xm/Sirius. I have a Kenwood system in my truck with Sirius. It sounds just as good as CD to me. I am not at all happy with the way Sirius sounds in my TL.

 

XM Channels have variable bit rates from 4 to 64 kbits/second - remember, the total bandwidth from the satellites is limited. As a quality reference point, standard telephone land lines (POTS) are 64 kbit/second (uncompressed). Most VoIP and other packet switched lines are in the 8 kbit/second (compressed) range when bandwidth is an issue. Bottom line, XM can make a given channel sound decent (assuming they can compress a 64kbit stream), but it will never sound great. The talk channels I like sound pretty horrid.