Sirius XM sound quality

My Tacoma is the first vehicle I've had with satellite radio. I'm currently on the extended trial period. Is it just me or does the sound quality out of satellite sound very flat? Kind of like throughing a blanket over the speakers. The standard fm radio sounds better to me.

 

Have you adjusted the sound settings? Each mode has its own sound settings you have to change. If you haven’t changed them, then maybe it could be sounding weird I guess. Mine sounded fine when I had a subscription.

 

Sat radio audio quality is a disgrace. Depending on reception it wavers between low and mid quality mp3.

 

It’s not you. My Lexus has the Mark Levenson system and by comparison the XM sound like a cassette vs the CD player even after playing with the EQ. Found the Taco to be similar.

 

Did you do the tweeter upgrade? World of difference

 

It's true, you can upgrade the entire sound system. XM radio will still sound like ass

 

Satellite broadcasting services have a limited amount of bandwidth they can allocate to each channel. They use audio compression technology which can make the audio sound flat.

 

I think it sounds a helluva lot better than terrestrial radio. And you can sit in your Taco and do a side by side comparo.

 

Yea, XM is no bueno. Have had it in my last 2 vehicles and it's all the same.

 

"It is FM quality, no more, no less", said the Sirius technician I have spoken to. Have had the service for years in a Silverado, Toyota Highlander and now my second Tacoma, all sound just like FM to me too.

 

Could just be where I'm located but XM definitely doesn't sound as nice as FM radio in my area.

 

Thanks for confirming. I did an A-B test between FM radio and SiriusXM and the radio sounds better. If I listened to talk radio, it would be fine but I typically listen to music when driving.

 

^This^ It caught me off guard too!

 

Sat radio and it’s compression sucks.

 

Lol what?

 

Any vehicle or head unit with XM/Sirius that I have had sound like crap. It sounds like its underwater.
HD radio sounds much better in conparison. I dont subscribe anymore.

 

My Sirius XM seems to go in and out. I'm not impressed.

I won't extend the free three month trial.

 

Aliasing is a audio engineers worst nightmare

 

Were you comparing it to FM or HD? HD might be on the same carrier wave as FM but it’s digital signal packs in far more information than the analog signal can.

Sirius is basically 2000 era technology. The bandwidth is garbage compared to what we have today. Two new satellites are being prepped to replace the last two old XM ones (one this year and one next year). The strategy does not seem to improve the quality though, it appears to be buy up the competition (Pandora).

The biggest technical challenge is probably improving bandwidth without making older receivers incompatible. Hopefully your diff will start howling then you will stop noticing how crappy XM is.

 

No matter which audio mode my Tacoma is in, it always sounds like the cheap head unit that it is...