I first began to notice this about a week ago, particularly on the talk channels of XM. There's been a sharp deterioration in quality, with most of the talk channels now sounding very tinny and sibilant, and with many of the rock channels sounding worse as well. For a while, I thought it was me, until my wife also commented how terrible XM now sounded. Sure enough, I went to several XM boards and it seems they have reduced the bandwidth of all of their talk channels and most of their music channels (except classical) as a way to add more channels in March and even more in April.

Just wondering--have any other Acura XM owners noticed this? I called XM who, typically, acted like the problem was my equipment and gave me a web address that would "reload" the system. I did, and it didn't help.

 

O&A were talking about it being a problem on their end. I would bitch back to XM.

 

I heard they are having trouble with their satelites dying sooner than expected and maybe they are scaling them back to extend their life...

 

I have noticed a volume/quality drop off...more on the talk channels. But I have f**cked around so much with the stereo (with the mods) I thought it might just be me...

 

Yeah, I thought the same thing...huh...this is interesting

 

i've also noticed this. i messed with my amp for my speakers (not subs) last week. i thought the decreased quality might have been caused by this somehow. my subs don't hit as hard on xm, but work find for cd's...and xm sounds a lot softer than it used to. glad to know others are having this same issue.

 

I have heard from a coworker that seems to know a lot more about this than most. He said that the poor sound quality may be a result of XM compressing their existing stations to allow for the recent addition of their 4 new ones (83, 49...etc). If this is the case then we may be up for more sound disappointment becuase there will be a few more stations added soon. I don't know if anyone has heard but the four existing XM stations that are controlled by clearchannel communications (Kiss, Mix and two others) are going to have commercials soon... so XM is going to add 4 more stations of their own to compete with these four clearchannel stations.

 

XM has channels controlled by Clear Channel? Do they own them or invest in xm this way???...just sounds funny that XM is adding four channels to "compete" on thier satellite.

 

Xm<sirius

 

Word I hear is the compression is higher to allow for 4 more non-commercial stations after losing to Clear Channel in that arbitration.

 

On April 17th, XM is adding 10 more music channels, which means their compression rates (already at dismal quality for their talk channels) will get even worse. If you'd like to read more detailed technical discussion of what's been going on in terms of their ever worsening sound quality, check out this discussion site:
http://www.xmfan.com/viewtopic.php?t...ylan&start=585

 

Yeah it all seems kind of silly to me...I just got a mailer today that gives some new info on the new channels. Just as an example XM hitlist (30) will be a new station and I assume that it will be competing with XM 20 on 20.

 

Is sirius any better in terms of programming or quality?

 

You can debate which one has better programming. I think with the addition of the new channels the XM programming will be pretty good. If you had to compare the quality of XM to Sirius I think XM wins, but XM's quality is about to go down some, so I am guessing the quality will be about even. It's six in one, half a dozen in the other.

 

Seems like I have Sirius as part of my satellite package. It has variety, but I like XM better so far. XM just seems more interesting. As for SQ, it's kind of unfair to compare the two, played on different systems, but Sirius definitely held its own. I still hate digitally-compressed music. It grates on the ears, and now XM is getting worse. Depressing.

 

I've noticed XM's lousy sound quality too -- to my ears the talk channels sound worse than the music ones. Is it possible they compress talk more than music?

Another problem I've noted is how often the signal cuts out when driving anywhere near restrictions. In my neck of the woods, any drive in the hills where there is timber anywhere near the road gives more 'no signal' than not -- annoying!

 

No kidding. On my previous car I installed an aftermarket XM tuner and mounted the antenna on the rear deck inside the car, and it would cut out once in a while. I was ok with this because of it's location. It looked nice but it wasn't in a spot that would be the most functional. Now I expected a little better with this Acura installed roof antenna though. Still cuts out every now and then.