roc97007
2008-03-11 22:59:25 UTC
...or is XM audio quality severely lacking?
I'm just about to renew my account, so I've had XM for about a year
now in the car. I mostly listen to the comedy channels and CNN, so
didn't really notice it at first, except for an empty feeling when
(occasionally) tuned to a music channel. But hey, I'm old and my ears
aren't what they used to be, and besides, cars aren't the best place
to listen to music anyway, so if it doesn't sound "right", it's
probably one of those things.
My daughter (14 this year) first clued me in when she stopped
listening to XM music around fall last year because it "sounds bad".
She insists we listen to FM or the ipod. (I have the ipod direct-
connected, not going through an fm transmitter.)
I finally decided to dig into it and see what the real deal was. So
in my driveway (engine off) I sampled Deep Tracks, The Blend, and
Flight 26 and really listened to them critically for significant
amounts of time. I noticed that the bass drum tended to go "tick tick
tick" instead of "thud", the voices had a little too much sibilance
and the highs seemed to be slightly distorted. I continued to get
that "empty" feeling like something is missing from the music. The
detail in the mid-to-high range was... just ok... and the detail in
the lower end was seriously lacking.
But maybe it was an equalization issue. The radio (Pioneer AVIC D3)
has a lot of audio settings that I had largely ignored. I tend to set
a stereo to "flat" with a slight hump in the bass and leave it there.
So I tried the different "hall" types and played with the equalizer,
but couldn't make it sound any better. Especially in the low end, it
wasn't an issue of equalization -- there just doesn't seem to be any
information to recover.
I live in the Portland area, so did a direct A/B of Deep Tracks and
Flight 26 with my daughter's favorite station, Charlie FM (97.1).
There was absolutely no comparison. As soon as I switched to FM, the
sound opened up, the bass volume and detail jumped up, and the high
end distortion disappeared. Switch back to XM, and the music was
lifeless and tinny. Of course, FM fidelity is not all that great, --
the ipod blows it away -- but FM is my current definition of "good
enough" for a car.
But it could be the radio. The AVIC D3 doesn't do XM natively -- you
have to buy an external module that fits under the dash somewhere.
Could it be that the Pioneer XM receiver doohicky is at fault? It's
my only XM radio, so I don't have an easy way to test this.
So I've sampled alt.radio.satellite, and it seems like there have been
other complaints of low sound quality. I even found a thread that
said the native sound quality improved noticeably sometime last year.
I did my tests in February 2008, so if this is better, I can't imagine
what it must have been like before.
Am I missing something here? Is my equipment at fault? Or do I have
too high expectations?
Ron
I'm just about to renew my account, so I've had XM for about a year
now in the car. I mostly listen to the comedy channels and CNN, so
didn't really notice it at first, except for an empty feeling when
(occasionally) tuned to a music channel. But hey, I'm old and my ears
aren't what they used to be, and besides, cars aren't the best place
to listen to music anyway, so if it doesn't sound "right", it's
probably one of those things.
My daughter (14 this year) first clued me in when she stopped
listening to XM music around fall last year because it "sounds bad".
She insists we listen to FM or the ipod. (I have the ipod direct-
connected, not going through an fm transmitter.)
I finally decided to dig into it and see what the real deal was. So
in my driveway (engine off) I sampled Deep Tracks, The Blend, and
Flight 26 and really listened to them critically for significant
amounts of time. I noticed that the bass drum tended to go "tick tick
tick" instead of "thud", the voices had a little too much sibilance
and the highs seemed to be slightly distorted. I continued to get
that "empty" feeling like something is missing from the music. The
detail in the mid-to-high range was... just ok... and the detail in
the lower end was seriously lacking.
But maybe it was an equalization issue. The radio (Pioneer AVIC D3)
has a lot of audio settings that I had largely ignored. I tend to set
a stereo to "flat" with a slight hump in the bass and leave it there.
So I tried the different "hall" types and played with the equalizer,
but couldn't make it sound any better. Especially in the low end, it
wasn't an issue of equalization -- there just doesn't seem to be any
information to recover.
I live in the Portland area, so did a direct A/B of Deep Tracks and
Flight 26 with my daughter's favorite station, Charlie FM (97.1).
There was absolutely no comparison. As soon as I switched to FM, the
sound opened up, the bass volume and detail jumped up, and the high
end distortion disappeared. Switch back to XM, and the music was
lifeless and tinny. Of course, FM fidelity is not all that great, --
the ipod blows it away -- but FM is my current definition of "good
enough" for a car.
But it could be the radio. The AVIC D3 doesn't do XM natively -- you
have to buy an external module that fits under the dash somewhere.
Could it be that the Pioneer XM receiver doohicky is at fault? It's
my only XM radio, so I don't have an easy way to test this.
So I've sampled alt.radio.satellite, and it seems like there have been
other complaints of low sound quality. I even found a thread that
said the native sound quality improved noticeably sometime last year.
I did my tests in February 2008, so if this is better, I can't imagine
what it must have been like before.
Am I missing something here? Is my equipment at fault? Or do I have
too high expectations?
Ron