sfguy

I got a new ILX and was interested that it came with SiriusXM because I like the variety of channels they offer, but the sound quality is absolutely awful. It's like listening to an iPhone turned up in a plastic bag underwater.

Of course, nothing will sound as good as the DVD-Audio discs, but these are limited (bought a couple on Amazon). I *did* expect SiriusXM to sound *at least* as good as my iPod (I rip at 320 kbps and buy some songs at 256) but it doesn't even come close. In fact, I would say it sounds worse than FM radio.

What gives? Why is the sound quality so bad?

Spirited Driver

Sounds REALLY good on mine. You live in Siberia?

spdandpwr

It depends which Sirius channels you listen to. Less popular channels suffer from poor sound quality due to the compression needed in order sustain the bandwidth needs of other, more popular, channels. Until the bandwidth issue is resolved, satellite radio is a poor music medium. I've had the same issue in my tl, tsx, hyundai genesis, and infiniti g37...its definitely not a hardware issue.

smarty666

Two things come to mind:

(1) Do you have the ELS 10 Speaker Surround Sound System or Standard Acura System. That can be making the difference.

(2) On every single vehicle I have ever had Sat Radio on, (Infiniti, Acura, Lexus, and Audi), the sat radio has always had a little bit more muffled sound to it compared to regular radio, bluetooth audio, and/or DVD-Audio discs. It is just something with the satellite reception/receiver from orbit that is not as strong as the ones located on the ground here for regular radio.

I think this is something that the Sat Radio company will improve over time as they can perfect the technology and signal received from the sat radio in orbit around the planet.

sfguy

Thanks, I have the Bose 10 Speaker Surround. I've been listening to a lot of DVD-A discs from fairly high quality sources, so I'm kind of a spoiled audiophile. I was hoping that satellite radio would have HD sound, vs. just standard, but I guess most people don't care too much about that.

terdonal

I have always found the XM to be of lower quality than CD and FM, IMO. Not bad but not great, depending on what music you are listening to.

Rocket_man

It is not a matter of signal strength. It is a digital signal like Satellite TV. It is a matter of the amount of compression they do to the signal to get more channel in the same bandwidth. If you listen to the traffic and weather channels it is so bad you can hardly tell what they are saying. In Satellite TV they compromise picture quality to get more channels, in Satellite radio it is audio quality.

spdandpwr

I understand the bandwidth issue, but satellite tv has more subscribers, more channels, and is streaming audio and video....you'd think that sirius would have an easier time sending out a 192 kb/s audio stream

sfguy

I agree. Sounds like they're being cheap with bandwidth because most people don't care.

As for Satellite TV, I was amazed when I used a plain old antenna to watch a game on regular TV in HD vs. that same game on satellite TV. The picture was SO much better on regular TV without all the compression.

Hopefully, as time goes on, bandwidth will improve and there won't be a need to compress signals anymore.

musty hustla

sounds terrible in my car too

Ken1997TL

It IS terrible and a good sound system only makes it more obvious. I've told them several times I'll return when they improve the audio quality.

smarty666

Regardless, my point was, this is hardly an Acura specific issue. The Sat Radio has sounds muffled and lousier in every car I've had from a variety of makes. If anything, the ELS system is one of the best sound systems, next to Audi's system.

spdandpwr

let me just say that quality wasn't much of an issue when xm first came out. in fact, satellite radio's selling point was the cd-like audio quality. Now that that has diminished, I see no value add between that and traditional media, almost makes the price premium not worth it.

Ken1997TL

Try the XM station "Pops" and see if you like the sound. It's 5.1 surround sound and higher quality.

I think it's channel 75.

njdman

If you want global news and decent financial insight its worth the $$ if you are in the car a lot during the day. I was in sales and on the road 40K miles per year and used if for those channels. For music, don't waste the time or money. Low bit rate, terrible sound regardless of what car of system. Use an Ipod and enjoy the music.

Rocket_man

Sirius and XM trnasmit in the S-band and only have about ~10Mhz of bandwidth. The lower frequency and higher power density (as opposed to Satellite TV) allows you to have a small omni-directional antenna on your roof. Sat TV uses a much higher frequency and much greater bandwith which allows for a much higher data rate to support video. The problem is that you need a large fixed dish to close the link. Still hard to close the link which you notice when it rains hard. So given the limitations of the bandwidth assigned to satellie radio they can only send down a limited data stream. Worse I think that when XM and Sirius merged they now carry stations from eachothers service but the hardware is not compatible so that might have forced them to compress programming even more. I mostly just listen to news and just a few music stations. I think the serice was better before the merger. I gave up XM for awhile and didn't really miss it. I only took it back because they made me a deal I couldn't refuse. With most younger people listening to compressed music all thier lives they probably just don't notice.

Chadeus

I had the 2009 TSX and it sounded bad there originally... and it was my first experience with XM satellite radio. I just bought the ILX and it sounds the same (bad!). The bitrate is just not there. I prefer to listen to my Droid Razr over bluetooth audio streaming via Google Music which is in sync with my home desktop computer... its my always up to date music playlist

ParaSurfer1979

It's my understanding that XM plays its music at a low 64kb/s. When Sat Radio first appeared, it was advertised as "near" CD quality audio. I don't see this anymore as it's not even near FM quality. My brothers Jaguar X-type has HD Radio and that sounds very clear. I'll still listen to SiriusXM radio as i love listening to live News stations while driving.

Rocket_man

They use an MPEG-like encoding scheme but my understanding is that they have reduced the quality since launch of the service to add more channels and also services like traffic and weather. I think if you are a music enthusiast you will be better off listening to your iPad or even streaming music over your cell phone to you car like the new Accord and other cars are beginning to offer. XM/Sirius subscribers will evole into people looking for niche programming, News, comedy, or specific hosts like Howard Stern or Playboy radio etc. Broadcast HD radio will also eat away at XM. It doesn't seem like XM/Sirius are doing anything to try to compete, they are just trying to keep subscribers and do everything they can to keep you locked into the service. Personnally I think their days are numbered but that could still be years.

spdandpwr

yea, I'm concerned with doing that because of the new capped data plans

ParaSurfer1979

Not meee... Im on Sprint which the Everything Plan doesnt cap or slow down 3g/4g because of high usage .

duckedtapedemon

Furthermore digital is "all or nothing". Either there's enough of a signal to fully decode the stream and you get a picture / sound, or you get nothing. In college I lived far enough away from the TV towers (~40 miles) that I couldn't get any tv signals with an unpowered antenna. I was eventually able to get watchable tv by using a powered Panasonic antenna, and also running it through a stone knives and bear skins aged powered amp I found laying around my parent's basement. Also had to put the antenna right by the window and it would sometimes lose signal if I walked around. Small communities definitely lost out on the transition. On the other hand I think that at least gives satellite subscribers in those areas the ability to ask for national versions of broadcast stations (possibly avoiding local blackouts for sporting events!) on the grounds that you can't receive something locally!