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XM radio - is it really CD quality?

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    XM radio - is it really CD quality?

    I was at BEST BUY the other day and a sales person was telling me that he threw all CDs outta his car cuz now he's got XM radio. He said it's CD quality. Is that true?

    #2
    don't know the actual specs, however, i would gamble to take a guess that it's pretty damn close. i've heard the XM demo running in CC and Tweeter.. it's pretty damn near hard tell the difference between a cd and satellite radio in store. granted the sound was coming from a pair of boston acoustic Z6's, i don't think it gets any better than that. being a reason for getting rid of your cd's?? wouldn't throw out your metallica albums just yet.. i'd have to wonder how the reliability stands out with satellite (ie, is your signal going to skip driving in a thunderstorm?).
    peace

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      #3
      yes. under majority of your driving the sound quality is phenomenal.
      but it is similar to dss, go under a bridge/parking garage, etc the sound may cut out while underground/under16" of concrete.
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        #4
        I agree that the SQ is very good. I have not had many problems with dropped signal unless I am in a parking garage. Not too many tunnels here in FLA! Some CDs have better quality than the XM signal. I love it because of the variety if music without having to make CDs or changing them out evertime I want to hear somethig different. Eventually I will have an MP3 capable HU and will still listen to burnt CDs.

        One great info from XM...As of Feb.1, all stations will be commercial free! Sirius will take another hit as that was one of their gimmicks to get customers. Now they are just simply more expensive than XM.

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          #5
          Originally posted by demoninvictus
          being a reason for getting rid of your cd's?? wouldn't throw out your metallica albums just yet..
          are you crazy? I'll never do that... xm or not...

          there are NO tunnels here either, no thunderstorms (I wish we had those - I love thunder and lightning), no nothing... so reception will not be a problem.

          looks like I might be getting an Alpine XM receiver + antenna to go with my XM ready Alpine HU.

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            #6
            I am sold on XM, and have it in all of the cars, and in the house- nifty thing the delphi headunit! I use it in the accura and the RX-7. In the MSP I am using and pioneer XM910 in the system.
            I have run up CD's against XM on cuts in the past, and I could not desern a difference. Different sources have different signal strenghts (one of the things that can make comparing any audio hardware difficult!) but I could not "hear" a difference.
            It is a digitial signal, so there is no sound injection, and the hardware uses a nul value on no information, no signal, no noise injected at all. As a digital signal, it is a true replica of the original source, the cd!
            Only drawback is so many older cds come from analog recordings!
            I also like the cross contry driving aspect of it. When Allison and I took our annual Christmas trip, we listened to Tune Disney (Please don't me started!!) all the way, petty neat actually.
            I like having BBC at hand, and far more alternative music, jazz, and classical than I would get locally.
            It won't ever replace CDs for me, but it will give over the air FM a run for the money for me! I hate to damned local ads from car dealers every freakin two minutes!!
            Some attourney needs to sue those dogs are a public menace!
            David A. Cameron
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              #7
              Originally posted by DeanSweet
              yes. under majority of your driving the sound quality is phenomenal.
              Originally posted by Rider69
              I agree that the SQ is very good.
              Originally posted by dacinokc
              I have run up CD's against XM on cuts in the past, and I could not desern a difference.
              Guys, I installed the Alpine XM tuner and a Terk SR-2 antenna. My head unit is an Alpine CDA-9815, All those gadgets work flawlessly together, but the sound quality is nowhere near CD quality. It sounds like 128kbps MP3.

              Is the problem in my installation? Did XM sound quality change?
              Last edited by Intruder; 05-16-2004, 02:50 AM.

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                #8
                hey bro, in 1997 when the mp3 pirates started with illegally copying music, guys like Justin at winamp were working harder and harder to make the technology more ubiquitous.. and i remember at the time, 128kbps was the '****' . and i only say 1997 because thats when i started my collection . i ultimately decided to off my xm stuff (delphi's crap) as it was fm modulated and didn't sound the best, sounded as if it was playing out of a tape player .
                peace

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                  #9
                  Mine isn't FM modulated, but still sounds like it's playing out of a tape. Such crap...
                  I so wish it was at least "192kbps mp3"-like, so I could keep it and enjoy it.

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                    #10
                    Huh, I was just thinking that most of my burned CD's end up at 128k and don't sound too bad. But I guess if I had to pay a subscription for that sound it'd be a different matter.

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                      #11
                      I think that I would be OK with 128k MP3s, it's what I use in the car. The audio in it is not good enough for me to be able to tell the difference... on the home system I can sure tell and in that case I would not be willing to pay a monthly fee for that quality.

                      Since the question piked my interest I went searchin' the web for an answer. While I am not sure of all the technical calculations of it the paper at ftp://ftp.xmdude.com/pub/text/Satellite_Radio_Paper.pdf seems to have a good amount of information. The audio is indeed being compressed and it is at a rate that is below what would be considered toll quality audio by the telcos (64kbps) it is still at a high enough rate (48kbps) that they should be able to provide very good quality. Makes me wonder if the decoders are not coming into play in the obeserved quality of the audio.
                      Last edited by JJB; 05-16-2004, 03:12 PM.
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                        #12
                        which would be a better one to choose, XM or Sirus?


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                          #13
                          Originally posted by JJB
                          Makes me wonder if the decoders are not coming into play in the obeserved quality of the audio.
                          48kbps is worthless to me. I can hear the difference between 160kbps and 192kbps mp3's. All mp3's that I have in my car are encoded at a bitrate higher than or at least 192kbps (most of them are variable bit rate and are at least 256kbps).

                          I don't think it's the decoder's fault. I'm guessing it's bandwidth that's stopping them from broadacsting high-quality streams. They are either not paying enough for bandwidth licensing or it's not possible to transmit such high bandwidth streams under those conditions (small non-stationary receiver antenna).

                          Whatever it is, I'm just going to keep it for the period of my one month subscription and unless a miracle happens, all the stuff will go on ebay.

                          EDIT: I read the paper and the 48kbps format mentioned is not a comparison to 48kbps mp3. They're saying that the compression XM radio uses needs only 48kbps to accomplish full quality audio. Apparently it is not enough.
                          Last edited by Intruder; 05-16-2004, 03:47 PM.

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                            #14
                            Originally posted by Intruder
                            They're saying that the compression XM radio uses needs only 48kbps to accomplish full quality audio. Apparently it is not enough.
                            That's ridiculous... if there's a compression format that good out there why don't we all have that on our computers already? I don't care if it's a proprietary format, someone would still have cracked it and distributed it.

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                              #15
                              Originally posted by jnorion
                              That's ridiculous... if there's a compression format that good out there why don't we all have that on our computers already? I don't care if it's a proprietary format, someone would still have cracked it and distributed it.
                              It's marketing .

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