Sirius quality not woth the money...

[Victor Wolansky]

I remember a few years ago when I heard Sirus for the first time, I was blown away, then I never hear it again, now that I have Siruis on the car, I totally hate is and I think the quality is really bad, sound like a very cheap 56 kb MP3 radio, not worth the money unless you are a fan of some of the shows, but not for listening to music, I can totally hear the compression. and I checked with other people Sirius radios to be sure is not my radio. What happened? Why they went so low on quality??

[akirby]

I remember a few years ago when I heard Sirus for the first time, I was blown away, then I never hear it again, now that I have Siruis on the car, I totally hate is and I think the quality is really bad, sound like a very cheap 56 kb MP3 radio, not worth the money unless you are a fan of some of the shows, but not for listening to music, I can totally hear the compression. and I checked with other people Sirius radios to be sure is not my radio. What happened? Why they went so low on quality??

 

Depends on the channel and probably the time of day. They do it to get more channels - no mystery there.

 

It doesn't sound any worse than FM to me but I'm no audiophile.

[Victor Wolansky]

I haven't found any channel with a decent compression yet.

[drevv]

I’ve had XM in my other car for 4 years. I enjoy commercial free music channels along with few shows and live game broadcasts from different markets. I never listen to FM anymore, since it seems like there’s a commercial on every two seconds. Now I got EDGEy, I’m looking forward to free 6 month of Sirius. Even though XM and Sirius have merged, there seems to be discrepancy in channel numbers and few missing shows and different sports categories. I loved listening to local and out of market MLB and NHL games on XM, now I understand Sirius has NFL, which is awesome, but since football season is over and baseball season is about to start, I’m gonna miss listening to Red Sox games on XM. As far as the quality goes I never noticed any distortion and it always sounds much better than FM station. I like artist and song tagging feature and visible game scores. The only issue that I seem to have now, is that it tends to go in and out a lot. In my previous vehicle I would only loose the signal when I was in the tunnel or somewhere in the mountains, other than that it worked like a champ all the time. On the EDGE it seems to go out a lot just driving down the street I would loose signal. I’m not sure if I had a stronger antenna on my old car (it was also built-in) or Sirius is somehow transmitted differently then XM. It hasn’t been that big of a deal to me, but does get a little annoying at times. Also with XM I was able to get their 50% deal ($77 a year) every time I renewed, so I’m hoping to be able to get a same or similar deal on Sirius, since I’ll be considered a new customer once my trial expires. Overall, I’ve enjoyed satellite radio for years, and looking forward to keeping it as long as prices remain reasonable.

Edited February 15, 2011 by drevv

[Victor Wolansky]

Tagging on the Edge Sirius? I've seen the alert thing, but not a TAG button, only on the FM HD I've seen tagging.

[KLC]

Although not CD quality, Sirius is better than any FM station in my area. I took advantage of the lifetime offer years ago and love it. Although if I had to pay monthly fees I'd probably reconsider.

[Theakerr]

Note my comments apply to Canada, Sirius in the US addresses some of my concerns. I will be cancelling my Sirius subscription when the discounted service ends. I will then put the money into buying songs for my i-pod. There are a couple of music formats that I really like, Folk and blues. Siruis does not have a folk channel, (they used to have one then they cancelled it and replaced it with Coffee House!!!) and their Blues station is awful (IMHOP) compared to XM. In general their "recycle" time seems to be getting shorter. I dont know who their DJ's are but their selection of 50's 60's and 70's music is very narrow leaving out many many songs that were around at the time. As someone has mentioned their audio quality is only so so and recently their "talk" content has gone up. The so called Canadian weather channel is a joke (again IMHOP). On the other side, I have noticed an improvement in local FM stations with less talk (than say a couple of years ago), much better content and I do get real weather and road data. Oh yes, I ride my MC a lot in the summer so I have to pay for a service I do not use. Suspend it you say, read the fine print I say. Get a MC radio, but now since the system in the car is not portable (like it used to be with multiple docking stations) I have to pay for two subscriptions. Now that music storage has become so cheap, I find myself using my i-pod a lot of the time. Finally and I never thought I would say this, but the TV satellite radio provides much better coverage and it, for the most part, is owned by CBC.

[Victor Wolansky]

I agree music program is better, but sound quality is so bad to me that I rather hear free FM, which does not sound as good of course,but is free, or FM HD which sound better than Sirius and is free. I rather use that money to buy music.

[mrdave]

I've also noticed that the sound quality of the sirius radio is horrible, to the point that I don't enjoy listening to most music on there. To a much lesser extent, I can also hear compression artifacts on most of the HD FM channels around here too. I'm dissappoint.

[wilsons66604]

Tagging on the Edge Sirius? I've seen the alert thing, but not a TAG button, only on the FM HD I've seen tagging.

I've tagged Sirius so I know it works. Make sure you have the buttons at the bottom of Sirius display deselected. This will give you the now playing screen. The button is on the right side of that screen

[wilsons66604]

The only reason I would even think about keeping Sirius is the travel link features. Let me rethink this, travel link weather tells me it's 250' and forecasting a high of 258' !

Maybe not

[Victor Wolansky]

The only reason I would even think about keeping Sirius is the travel link features. Let me rethink this, travel link weather tells me it's 250' and forecasting a high of 258' !

Maybe not

 

 

As far as I know you can pay for only the travel link without being subscribed to the radio....

[nextime]

I had Sirius on two vehicles and the quality sucked. I had it on my 1998 Windstar with a high end radio and speaker system and on a 2010 Escape rental. Some channels sounded OK but they all sounded like they were broadcasted out of a cardboard box, like a hollow sound. I am into high end sound and Sirius does not provide it except for maybe a few channels.

 

I mostly listen to MP3's that are burned onto CD's. I have a small iPod shuffle that sounds better than Sirius.

[wilsons66604]

I got the re-UP notice today. I guess I need to look into the options.

I think I have to sign up for basic package before I can add the Travel Link. I hope not.

[Feirstein]

We recently turned on Sirius in our Edge and we generally enjoy the music programing on a few channels, and like the news channels. BUT the excessive application of normalization (to make everything sent out at the same sound level) and compression takes away a good deal of our sonic enjoyment. A decent FM station does not employ as much compression. Don't they listen to their customers? Every comment I read about XM and Sirius is about the excessive use of compression.

Edited February 19, 2011 by Feirstein

[Victor Wolansky]

Imagine... A 128kb mp3 is the minimum you can use to not hear much compression. iTunes sell 256kb mp3.. Sirius see 48 to 56kb on the streams... Just trash...

[nextime]

I can fit like 120 to 150 songs on one MP3 disc. You mix and match the songs and it will be like listening to Sirius because you are guaranteed to hear music you like, it will always sound perfect, you have a wide variety of songs and if you do not like the 150 MP3's on that one disc burn another or throw another disc in that you keep in your glove box.

 

This is exactly what I do. I don't even listen to FM anymore!

 

Save your money you spend on Sirius and buy one stack of of blank CDR's and throw the rest on to an iTunes account and disconnect Sirius. I guarantee in one year you would have saved some cash plus been happy with the quality of the sound of the music you are playing.

[moreheads]

I guess it depends on what you are looking for. I listen to some music but mainly talk radio or sports. The convenience of long-distance driving without having to change channels as you move through local coverage is a big deal to me. The music quality is ok, certainly not as good as MP3's but if I want to listen to high quality music I'll plug in my MP3 player. When I look on their website they advertise convenience and choice, not quality.

 

It works for me.

[carfaninpa]

I traded in my 2007 Acura RL with XM for my 2011 MKX. There is no question the sound was better on my Acura. I was surprised of the diminished quality of sound when I listened to Sirius on my MKX. The other thing is that I lose the signal for a second or two when I go under small bridges now and that did not happen in my Acura. I had to be stopped under a bridge to lose the signal. Now the question is...is the difference because one was XM and the other is Sirius or is it that the Acura had a much better satellite radio and the Lincoln radio just gets poorer reception?

[Victor Wolansky]

It is digital, so there is no mid quality reception, or works or not. But what some high quality stereos have is DSPs that can restore digital compression masking out the classic buzz in high frequency caused by high compression, this just mask averaging the gaps on the waveform. I can tell the difference too. Now, this buzz is something you can only hear if your speakers can go really high in frequency response. For example in my boss BMW I can not hear it, but, his speakers do not have tweeters at the head height as the Edge have, it have them only on the door, and high frequency is very directional. If not pointed at you, you will hear only the bouncing on the seats, doors, etc. This can soften the highs, but also the overal sound looses a lot of brightness and presence. Try to listen to Sirius with Bose or Sure headphones... It will make you vomit.

 

I guess you are right. They sell programing and convenience, but, how many people live on the road? Enough to sustain that huge company? I'm wondering if quality drop won't be one of the reasons of the company financial problems. I won't pay a subscription for sure.

[wilsons66604]

As far as I know you can pay for only the travel link without being subscribed to the radio....

After getting a run around and bounced between 5 brain dead customer reps, I was finally able to renew sirius travel link ONLY. It's like $23/year

They sure make it hard to get ala carte!

At one point, they were trying to tell me I had to buy the everything plan for $280/yr...WTF!

[Victor Wolansky]

thanks, good to know! There is no way I will pay for the music content... does that plan have a name for when I get to do it?

 

Thanks

[tpm419419]

Hello

My 6 month Sirius free trial is about to expire. Do I need to add Sirius travel and traffic to my subscription or is that part of the 3 year complimentary service? Or is the 3 year comp service Sync only?? Plus if I do need to add Sirius travel and traffic doesn't that do the same as Sync traffic? Maybe someone can clear this up

 

Thanks

[viper001]

Hello

My 6 month Sirius free trial is about to expire. Do I need to add Sirius travel and traffic to my subscription or is that part of the 3 year complimentary service? Or is the 3 year comp service Sync only?? Plus if I do need to add Sirius travel and traffic doesn't that do the same as Sync traffic? Maybe someone can clear this up

 

Thanks

Here is my understanding of how all this breaks out. The 3 year complementary SYNC covers just the services that are related to the syncmyride.com web site, and when you are in the car and say "Services" and it connects via your cell phone. These would include vehicle health reporting, downloading directions from Google, downloading saved favorite points, the news and verbal weather service, and the SYNC based business searching.

 

Sirius Travellink covers the screen based weather services, the fuel prices, movie listings, and very importantly, all the traffic that is visible on your touchscreen (maps with traffic, navigation traffic avoidance, etc). I believe Sirius breaks this out into 2 services but I would suspect most people would want them both (Traffic and Info Services) as they are apparently pretty cheap (see post above).

 

Additionally, Sirius has the music portion of the service. You either use this or you don't, apparently you can just have the Travellink without the music stuff (or vice-versa).

 

I think a lot of folks, especially those with navigation like me, are going to be disappointed to discover the traffic built into the navigation system is coming from Sirius and will stop after 6 months versus continuing for 3 years. At least it is cheap to continue, but the free 3 year service is mainly the voice system where the car dials the SYNC 800 number.

 

If I am wrong someone please correct me. To be honest even my dealer was not clear on how all this works out, I was told everything was included free for 3 years except the music service but from what I'm reading that is not correct. The Travellink stuff expires after 6 months as well and is fairly integrated into the navigation equipped models...

[Victor Wolansky]

You are correct, although, I have never got a traffic report yet that saved me from a bad traffic situation from them, mostly because the time that takes for accidents to be reported and get that report delivered to your unit. Sometimes that report takes about an hour to happen, at least in Virginia where I live. I get much faster reporting on my iPhone with Google maps and in my regular GPS. May be for other areas where traffic is much worst makes a difference? Not in here for me.