Satellite Radio Quality

[merlinq2]

Good afternoon all,

I have Sat radio in my car and I find the quality of the sound to be less than spectacular. FM and CD is far better than the quality of the sat radio!

Anyone else share the same opinion? Or do we think it might be that my tuner sucks?

[The00Dustin]

I suppose the Infiniti tuner could suck, but my guess is the service quality sucks. Going to digital transmissions has really sucked for quality across the board, my gripes typically go to the cell phone providers, but it is true across all phone providers and radio and television providers. With the phone companies switching to digital (cell) or even VOIP (landlines to Internet lines), the motive is clearly greed, the technologies (digital cell & VOIP) allow many more calls to take place in the same space with the same quality, but instead of maintaining the quality, they compress it a bit more to gain even more calls in the same space. The clearly greed aspect of this is with more $$ coming in per call and more calls with less lines / towers / less costs (but our prices don't come down, do they?). The same thing can be seen with digital cable, the quality should be better, but often isn't (and then they force you to rent a box even though all digital cables could receive the signal if they didn't make it proprietary just to charge you more). One could argue that cell phone service providers have justification in limited airspace, but I don't buy that. That argument is more sound for SAT (TV and radio) where there is truly limited bandwidth (SAT TV required 2 satellites up in the air just to pick up all of the channels when dish & direc first came out, not sure how it is now with HD and whatnot). I am guessing that SAT radio is the same (satellite is already at max capacity), but even if it's not, the sad fact remains, sheeple will pay top dollar for subpar products. The verdict is still out on digital FM, but my old M doesn't even support that, and most radio stations don't broadcast in it, so it's hard telling. I may never get to form an opinion on digital FM or digital VHF/UHF, but I wouldn't be surprised if their quality was better (they may be less greed-driven as ad-supported over-the-air broadcasts).

[07sportm35]

I have noticed a difference for sure although not huge but definetly a difference for sure.

If you have an auxilary jack try running Pandora from your phone for far better music both in selection and quality.

[EniGmA1987]

If you have an auxilary jack try running Pandora from your phone for far better music both in selection and quality.

Most phones have terrible quality DSP units in them. Take the evo 3d for instance, at stock it has a frequency range of 65Hz-14kHz. Terrible.

[merlinq2]

Thanks everyone, so it is not just me.

Have a great day

[M35 Eagles fan]

I noticed the same thing when I got my M35 in April of 2010. I had an aftermarket Sirius unit installed and hardwired into my 2002 Q45 and loved it and sound quality was pretty good. The sound quality of XM in the M was poor and I ended up cancelling after 4 or 5 months and started burning my music onto CDs and then onto the Music Box hard drive. Sounds pretty decent and definitely better than XM did. I do miss some of the variety - sports, comedy and music outside of what I have but it wasn't worth it with the crappy quality even for as little as it costs.

[merlinq2]

I noticed the same thing when I got my M35 in April of 2010. I had an aftermarket Sirius unit installed and hardwired into my 2002 Q45 and loved it and sound quality was pretty good. The sound quality of XM in the M was poor and I ended up cancelling after 4 or 5 months and started burning my music onto CDs and then onto the Music Box hard drive. Sounds pretty decent and definitely better than XM did. I do miss some of the variety - sports, comedy and music outside of what I have but it wasn't worth it with the crappy quality even for as little as it costs.

Thanks for the feed back, I am intrigued by the concept of the music box hard drive system. Is this an off the shell system that you can buy and integrate? If so can you pass on any info? I would appreciate it. I must have 2,000 invested in Itunes, which I would love to take with me.

Thanks

[EniGmA1987]

Music Box system comes in the 2008+ models, and honestly isnt that good because it is hard to use. But the sound quality would be much better than satellite radio.

[M35 Eagles fan]

Music Box is part of the factory stereo system with one of the package - tech or advanced tech - I don't remember which one includes hard drive. There are aftermarket options as well that you can use to listen to your music in the car.

[merlinq2]

Again many thanks