XM Raido (AUDIO QUALITY SUXXOR)

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In article <VUEVc.119679$sh.25040@fed1read06> leonshouse@hotmail.com writes:

> XM RADIO sound quality sux

I had a rental car with a Sirius radio recently and I thought the
audio quality of that was pretty poor, but then it wasn't really all
that different from "commercially processed" FM broadcast.

I've been told that XM sounds better than Sirius.

> Sounds like mp3 but u can hear the cymbols a bit better..

Well, it sort of is. They use a data reduction algorithm.

> Absolutly NO HI FREQ past 15-16k

Who needs it? This is radio, not 96 kHz audio in your studio.

> sounds like someone took a dehisser and
> maxed it, thus squashing anything that was shimmery in the sound ! The
> stereo image sounds phony!

Stereo image does tend to get a bit funky with data reduction. I
notice this a lot when listening to radio-over-Internet. My solution
is to listen in mono, but sometimes the channels are far enough out of
phase so that important things get lost. My solution to that is to not
care because it's free and I'm not in a serious listening session,
it's just interesting music to have on while I'm doing something more
productive than listening.

> Nothing compared to local FM radio or CD's ..

Not being comparable to local FM radio except for one classical
station and one public station that plays bluegrass over the weekend
would be a blessing. I wouldn't expect it to be comparable to a CD,
assuming it's a good sounding CD. But where do you find those any
more? Particularly CDs that anyone would play on the radio?

> Side note the top 20 channel sounded much more HI-FI than the rest of the
> channles. not sure if they get more bandwidth or what.

More processing, so you get more artificial separation, shimmering
highs, and throbbing bass.


--
I'm really Mike Rivers (mrivers@d-and-d.com)
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me here: double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

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Ted Spencer <prestokid@aol.com> wrote:
>
>The people who make these decisions try to figure out what the audience's
>hunger-for-channels to digust-at-poor-quality ratio is, and deliver that. They
>know that many more people will buy the service for the most popular channels
>than the more obscure ones, so they weigh the quality scale accordingly. I'm
>not sure of the exact math, but it wouldn't surprise me if there's a 10:1 ratio
>bandwith-wise between the best and worst channels.

The problem is that the least popular channels are probably acoustic music
that needs more bandwidth to get an acceptable sound quality. God knows
that the Slavic Opera Channel can't be among the top ten, but it's one of
the things that will fall apart most quickly with compression. Not to
mention the All-Balalaika-All-The-Time Channel.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

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>> Absolutly NO HI FREQ past 15-16k

Well neither TV or FM go past 15kHz.


-- Ty Ford's equipment reviews, audio samples, rates and other audiocentric
stuff are at www.tyford.com

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"D Ray" <david@timecalc.com> wrote in message
news:eaf9681.0408220707.141fb833@posting.google.com...
>
> This is nonsense. You've never heard FM sound as good as XM.
> Anytime, anyplace.

I've heard FM sound BETTER than any CD! Unfortunately this was 40 years ago
when even the best AM sounded better than XM if you had a good enough
receiver.

I'm a happy XM subscriber but I wish they'd stuck with straight limited
bandwidth AAC instead of the synthesized high frequencies of AAC-plus. And
yes, their competition sounds even worse.

--
Bob Olhsson Audio Mastery, Nashville TN
Mastering, Audio for Picture, Mix Evaluation and Quality Control
Over 40 years making people sound better than they ever imagined!
615.385.8051 http://www.hyperback.com

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Marc Wielage <mfw@mmusictrax.com> wrote:
>On Aug 22, 2004, D Ray <david@timecalc.com> commented:
>
>> This is nonsense. You've never heard FM sound as good as XM.
>> Anytime, anyplace.
>>--------------------------------snip----------------------------------<
>
>Back off, dude. Don't tell me what I have or haven't heard. You don't have
>my ears; you haven't lived my life; you don't know what I know; and you don't
>hear what I hear.

I have no idea what anyone has heard, but if you want to hear FM that
sounds way better than XM, come and visit me. I got a local station with
minimal processing (just an Optimod that is set very conservatively) and
a very short air chain and I think you'll be shocked at how clean it is.

Hell, I have heard AM that sounded better than XM, but not since the
NRSC standards came out....

>All I know is, if local (Los Angeles) FM radio is up on my speakers, I can
>instantly tell the difference on my modest office system. FM sounds better
>and cleaner to me than XM -- not lightyears better, but it's audible. It
>depends on the specific music being played.

If LA stations sound better than XM, that _is_ a pretty bad sign....
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

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In article <qsdWc.127175$sh.30853@fed1read06>, leonshouse@hotmail.com
says...
> Why do i think this guy buys all his audio equipment in the "pro audio"
> section at guitar center.

Actually, our local GC carries and displays Manley, BLUE, Neumann,
Universal Audio, and the like... surprised the hell out of me. They had
a refurb U47 one time.

--
Jay Levitt |
Wellesley, MA | Hi!
Faster: jay at jay dot eff-em | Where are we going?
http://www.jay.fm | Why am I in this handbasket?

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

In article <20040823115239.04837.00001732@mb-m12.aol.com>,
prestokid@aol.com says...
> The biggest problem in the "pro audio" department is that *no one* I've
> encountered in either of the two locations has a hint of a semblance of a clue
> about what he's selling. They appear to be about as well informed as your
> typical fast food restaurant employee. My interactions with them invariably
> consist of educating them about the basics of whatever I happen to be looking
> at. Every time...

Yeah, that's typically true at most of the GCs in Boston, too. The one
near BU seems to be an exception; I know my old sales guy was a Berklee
grad who'd done some actual time in studios, and seemed to know his
stuff fairly well.

> As to the guitar section, the stores are not humidified at all as far as I can
> tell, so all the instruments hanging on the wall

You know, as an acoustic-only player (and player being a strong word),
it never occurred to me that electrics would need humidification too,
simply *because* they're always out in the main room on the walls.

--
Jay Levitt |
Wellesley, MA | Hi!
Faster: jay at jay dot eff-em | Where are we going?
http://www.jay.fm | Why am I in this handbasket?

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On Aug 22, 2004, Scott Dorsey <kludge@panix.com> commented:

> I have no idea what anyone has heard, but if you want to hear FM that
> sounds way better than XM, come and visit me. I got a local station with
> minimal processing (just an Optimod that is set very conservatively) and
> a very short air chain and I think you'll be shocked at how clean it is.
>--------------------------------snip----------------------------------<

There are a few LA stations, particularly the public and/or jazz stations at
the bottom of the dial, that have pretty minimal processing. Their overall
level is about 10 dB lower than the hyper-compressed pop/rock stations, so
they kinda stand out on the dial. But with a good antenna, they're
remarkably transparent, at least as far as FM goes.

But average rock & pop stations that use Orban or Omnia or any of those
processors are pretty much constricted in dynamic range. The talk stations
are even worse. But even given the signal path, going through STL microwave
links and so on, I think the quality of the FM radio I hear is typically
better than what I hear on XM, on a modest home system. Not gigantically
better, but audibly better.




> If LA stations sound better than XM, that _is_ a pretty bad sign....
>--------------------------------snip----------------------------------<

It depends on the local station. Some of them are guilty of over-processing
-- the sub-harmonic enhancement going on over at KRTH-FM is pretty awful, and
is audible even on a $49 clock radio -- but even with that, I don't hear the
typical XM "MP3-ish" compression artifacts like that metallic, swirly/phasey
distortion that pops up occasionally.

Again, I don't want to give the impression that XM is unlistenable garbage.
It's not nearly that bad. It's OK as background music, and I don't think
their target audience (mostly car listeners) hate it or even notice a lot of
these flaws. But XM does have some very obvious sonic flaws, and Mr. Ray is
wrong to think XM sounds better than good FM. People who care about good
sound and want a serious listening source will be bothered by the sonic
limitations of XM or Sirius satellite broadcasts. I'd be annoyed as hell if
I had to listen to XM at loud levels, without any distractions.

Of course, if Mr. Ray lives in a bad reception area and is listening to FM on
a cheap tuner with a 50-cent dipole antenna, inside a concrete metal-frame
building (or in a moving car in an urban environment), with tons of multipath
and RFI... yeah, XM might then sound better than FM. Lots better, actually.

--MFW
[remove the extra M above for email]

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JoVee <ten.nozirev@dlywsinhoj.com> wrote in message news:<BD541FC0.1938%ten.nozirev@dlywsinhoj.com>...

> WFMT
>
> lotsa stations in major markets pre-70's loudness wars.
>


I was thinking of WFMT when writing about FM sounding better than XM.
Are they known all over the land for the sound they have?

Peter