Satellite sound quality
Champion
Joined: Dec 2007
Posts: 3,563
Likes: 0
From: Ontario, Canada
Wow! This is all sounding strange to me. 
I had just traded in my '06 Ram 2500, with a complete Alpine System in it. Cost me around $2K. Sounded awesome. Dynamat'd the cab, Dual subwoofer under the rear seat etc. However in the '09 I was thinking I would just leave it alone. It sounds really good to me. I have the stock single cd radio, stock speakers and the bass in Sat mode rumbles the cabin. I don't get the comments on tinny sounding? However I can't leave anything alone, and am planning the Nav radio change. I like having the uconnect which I don't have in this truck. Hands free is going to be the law in NH soon, and I want to be ready. I do have the cutting out of the radio in Sirrus, with all the trees and mountains where I live. I never had as much cutting out when I had the XM radio. So there is truth to the satallite placement. If I resubscribe, I wonder if they could just have one hover over my truck from then on.
I had just traded in my '06 Ram 2500, with a complete Alpine System in it. Cost me around $2K. Sounded awesome. Dynamat'd the cab, Dual subwoofer under the rear seat etc. However in the '09 I was thinking I would just leave it alone. It sounds really good to me. I have the stock single cd radio, stock speakers and the bass in Sat mode rumbles the cabin. I don't get the comments on tinny sounding? However I can't leave anything alone, and am planning the Nav radio change. I like having the uconnect which I don't have in this truck. Hands free is going to be the law in NH soon, and I want to be ready. I do have the cutting out of the radio in Sirrus, with all the trees and mountains where I live. I never had as much cutting out when I had the XM radio. So there is truth to the satallite placement. If I resubscribe, I wonder if they could just have one hover over my truck from then on.
Champion
Joined: Dec 2007
Posts: 3,563
Likes: 0
From: Ontario, Canada
Sound quality has nothing to do with a 'crummy antenna'. It's a digital signal. Either you have it or you don't.
Sound quality in satellite has everything to do with bandwidth and bitrate. you can only cram so many channels into the bandwidth that they are allowed to use. So, you can have a few very high quality, high bitrate channels, or you can have a ton of lower quality channels. People generally choose satellite for programming content and not sound quality, so that's why they sacrifice quality for programming options. It's not that satellite is not capable of cd quality sound, they just choose not to broadcast that way.
Bitrates change constantly depending on programming load, and programming type. Talk channels get much lower bitrates than music does, sports get less than talk; traffic and weather get the least. For example, on heavy sports days (like college football saturdays), all that extra bandwidth has to come from somewhere. So, other channels will take a quality hit, or turned off completely.
Since the merger, you have best of xm packages on sirius and vice versa, which is a whole lot more bandwidth that needs to be pulled from other programming so it would make sense that sound quality has gone down since the merger.
Regarding xm vs. sirius reception, the two use different satellite types. xm uses geosynchronous satellites (always in the same spot) low on the horizon. So it is more likely to be blocked by a mountain or big building to the south, but the low angle allows it to shoot under bridges, gas pump roofs, garages, etc. Sirius uses 'moving' satellites in a higher orbit which beam from more of a straight down angle, but that angle changes throughout the day. That high angle is less likely to be blocked by buildings, mountains, etc, but will almost always be blocked by bridges, roofs, etc. Poor reception (cutting in and out) can be a result of antenna design, but i've not found mine to cut out anywhere except where I expect it to because of the nature of the sirius satellites. I had xm for many years, and found the low angle synchronous reception to be much more reliable.
Sound quality in satellite has everything to do with bandwidth and bitrate. you can only cram so many channels into the bandwidth that they are allowed to use. So, you can have a few very high quality, high bitrate channels, or you can have a ton of lower quality channels. People generally choose satellite for programming content and not sound quality, so that's why they sacrifice quality for programming options. It's not that satellite is not capable of cd quality sound, they just choose not to broadcast that way.
Bitrates change constantly depending on programming load, and programming type. Talk channels get much lower bitrates than music does, sports get less than talk; traffic and weather get the least. For example, on heavy sports days (like college football saturdays), all that extra bandwidth has to come from somewhere. So, other channels will take a quality hit, or turned off completely.
Since the merger, you have best of xm packages on sirius and vice versa, which is a whole lot more bandwidth that needs to be pulled from other programming so it would make sense that sound quality has gone down since the merger.
Regarding xm vs. sirius reception, the two use different satellite types. xm uses geosynchronous satellites (always in the same spot) low on the horizon. So it is more likely to be blocked by a mountain or big building to the south, but the low angle allows it to shoot under bridges, gas pump roofs, garages, etc. Sirius uses 'moving' satellites in a higher orbit which beam from more of a straight down angle, but that angle changes throughout the day. That high angle is less likely to be blocked by buildings, mountains, etc, but will almost always be blocked by bridges, roofs, etc. Poor reception (cutting in and out) can be a result of antenna design, but i've not found mine to cut out anywhere except where I expect it to because of the nature of the sirius satellites. I had xm for many years, and found the low angle synchronous reception to be much more reliable.
I have a 72 Chevy Pickup with a Sony aftermarker system, with HD, Sirius, and I have the antenna stuck to a hoist for my wheel chair(magnetic). When I was on the phone getting my radio hooked up I was in the garage and did not know I was supposed to be outside. Anyway she was asking me for info and I had the radio on sat and it was giving snow all of a sudden it starts working so i start playing with stations etc. and she asks if I am outside of in any type of structure I told her my garage, she said it won't work I said it has been working for 5 minutes already. She said impossible I said working and I have no wheels on it so I can't drive it out. Anyway I said okay then forget it. It stayed working to this day. She did not do what ever to shut it off. So free sat, and in that truck it never cuts out and sounds better than the radio but not as good as the HD.
Last edited by 72combo; Feb 2, 2010 at 03:46 PM.
