Sirius XM Satellite Radio FREE 1/30/13 thru 2/12/13

Quote from holmez : Not sure if it's the stations I listen to, but Hair Nation and some of the other channels around it sound overly compressed. I purchased a lifetime subscription in 2007 and it seems like it has gotten worse. I'm currently using a Sportster 5 receiver with a 3.5mm connection to the aux input on my car stereo. I also use it with a home dock and the portable boombox. My wife has it on her factory installed car stereo. Yes, the argument could be made that the source material was recorded that way, which wouldn't be inaccurate, but I'm convinced the sound quality has declined. Despite that, we still love to use it for long road trips.

that is crazy, may just be a unit issue. I swear I had a roady 2 (god knows how old that is now) just over FM, they sent me a letter that the signal in it broke new FCC regulations, so then I had it wired into my FM antenna (for free, paid for by XM) and it sounded great. Now I have it as part of my car stereo in my new car and with the 7 speaker sound, it sounds awesome.

I have never really noticed and sound issues, come to think of it I will say that I have a friend at my last job that had a VW, and his always sounded like garbage.. sports or music... had the same sound you described.

I really think this is a manufacturer thing, as mine has always sounded great in my honda, and my mom has it in her ford escape and it sounds great in there too.

Quote from nojmplease : If you think Sirius/XM doesn't have SQ issues, then you aren't even remotely an audiophile. The fidelity is roughly on par with a poorly encoded 64kbps mp3, and some of the music stations are even transmitting in mono (!) now. It's awful. What was passable in 2001-2005 is not acceptable in 2013, with smartphones and 4G connections. The Internet streaming version of Sirius/XM is slightly more acceptable, but it still doesn't approach Pandora/Spotify quality. The problem seems to be that they are overloading their limited bandwith with pointless stations, like those artist-only ones and the endless talk stations.

man I could not disagree more, I just replied to a post mentioning my situations. But I had a roady 2 with XM transmit over the FM, sounded ok... but XM paid for it to be hardwired through the FM antenna and it sounded good.. not tremendous, but good.

I now have it factory installed in my new cr-v with the 7 speaker system and it sounds awesome, not mono, not tinny, doesnt have that underwater sound. I have however been in cars where it sounds like pure garbage, and I know that talk stations have that tinny poor badwidth sound, but even the music stations have that poor quality. It could be a sirius vs xm thing, or a manufacturer thing.. but I dont think its an XM thing.

Quote from zolttt : that is crazy, may just be a unit issue. I swear I had a roady 2 (god knows how old that is now) just over FM, they sent me a letter that the signal in it broke new FCC regulations, so then I had it wired into my FM antenna (for free, paid for by XM) and it sounded great. Now I have it as part of my car stereo in my new car and with the 7 speaker sound, it sounds awesome. I have never really noticed and sound issues, come to think of it I will say that I have a friend at my last job that had a VW, and his always sounded like garbage.. sports or music... had the same sound you described. I really think this is a manufacturer thing, as mine has always sounded great in my honda, and my mom has it in her ford escape and it sounds great in there too.

Thanks for the response. I often wondered about the difference among manufacturers, but like I said, hearing it on my wife's factory installed unit made me question if things had changed. I've been using the service since 2004 and I'd like to upgrade my 2007-2008 device, but I love the Sportster 5's 1-hour buffer. I'll give a quick listen to the other stations tonight to see if it's just HairNation, Lithium, etc. I don't recall it being present on the jazz and classical stations though. Given that the Roady 2 is long in the tooth, do you have any other device recommendations? It's being used with a Clarion CZ500 head unit aux input.

edit

Decided to do the google thing and found a recent forum discussing this very subject...gotta love the Internet. http://www.avsforum.com/t/1388846...nhancments

Seems the XM codecs are better than the Sirius codecs according to the posts. As with anything, I'm sure it's subjective, but it makes sense if you are using an XM Roady 2 and I have a Sirius Sportster 5.

It's not working with the Promo Code.

And if you remove the promo code, I bet you'll get the old 7 day trial, not 14.

For an email, use 10minutemail.com [10minutemail.com]. I occasionally use the trail to listen online free for a week, they always have a 7 day trial.

How is the sound quality compared to standard FM radio?

I was looking forward to having XM in my next car because we take a lot of road trips through rural areas. But these posts about poor sound quality concern me.

I have no real XM device recommendations, my new cr-v has it (XM not sirius) built in and it sounds awesome. I read that the XM ONYX is decent, someone posted on SD about a deal on it I think, but it is only 40 bucks on amazon.

reading that link, I did some more research, the 2 brands of cars I heard the bad audio in were VW and KIA who are both sirius. However I swear another friend of mine had sirius in his jeep and I dont remember it sounding as bad...It is crazy that there is such a difference.

I got three months (I think) preview automatically a couple beginning of January. Received a letter in the mail from so and so exec at Sirius saying it would be on. Though it was a preview for everyone. Looks now like it is targeted?

Quote from TonyTouch : How is the sound quality compared to standard FM radio? I was looking forward to having XM in my next car because we take a lot of road trips through rural areas. But these posts about poor sound quality concern me.

It's a different sort of bad. XM is loaded with digital artifacting and some stations are worse off than others (e.g. mono vs stereo, varying bitrates). Think of a badly encoded MP3 file or audio from a low-quality Youtube video.

FM is just lacking any and all dynamic range, and of course you face the issue of interference. HD Radio is slightly better but extremely wonky technology. And of course, all of those glorious commercials...

THAT BEING SAID, XM on a roadtrip can be a godsend. You ears eventually can adjust to the SQ, and the tradeoff of the great programming on certain stations is still worth it IMO.

Quote from mobo2112 : Sirius...available channels...awesome Business operations, practices, etc......SUCK. Trying to get out of an auto-renew agreement with them is a SUPER PITA. My .02

I agree 100%! I don't think these idiots have a clue. If they would just offer decent prices to everyone they'd probably increase their customer base and increase revenue.

XM (and Sirius to some degree) made some _terrible_ deals for content. Their operating cost shot up because of this so they are probably having a difficult time collecting revenue. IMHO, the company is simply missed managed.

I much prefer XM content to Pandora. Also, there are no worries about keeping a data connection in order to obtain content. I can drive anywhere and still pull in XM.

i don't subscribe to the service and always take advantage of the free preview. I mostly listen to the 1 or 2 comedy channels they have, but i've found that it's the same stuff i hear everytime.. so it seems to me like either there is no new content, or they play the same preview all the time, which is stupid because then people like me will think its the same shit over and over and not worth paying for anyway...

Quote from chuck4rooke : Are you post paid or prepaid?

post paid with 2GB.

I managed to luck into a login/password that works for internet radio. I can't get it to work in my car though. I never use it though. When I want to listen to internet radio, I just access my Directv via my Slingbox and I can listen to anything I want. And this way, I never accidentally listen to howard stern. What a waste.

I'm surprised these guys are still in business

This post reminded me about my subscription coming to and end soon. I called and wanted to cancel, they offered 1/2 off, and then eventually $5 for 5 months ($29.91 total). Every time I said NO, the price dropped. It's worth it for $5/mo. Not willing to pay more than that.

Thanks for the post OP.

Oh -since y'all are on the topic, XM sounds pretty good in the Honda. I'm wouldn't call myself an audiophile, but have a decent ear for pitches, etc. The 7 speakers sound great whether it's a CD or XM.