im not sure if my expectations were too high on the "excellent" sound quality w/ satellite radio. after a week of having it i can't listen to it cause the quality is so low... i get a hiss sound..... like im listening to a cassete....
this is the XM brain for a N3 w/o traffic
9 something is the model #
does anyone feel this way?
No, something is wrong with your setup
do you have your XM receiver outside of your car? It would really optimize reception if you did that first.
the brain is inside and the antenna is on my roof.... is the sound supposed to be close to..... lets say a CD?
Yes on the music stations. the talk stations though the quality can vary alot.
I'm noticing this as well. Some channels seem worse than others. Heck, some songs seem worse than others. I was starting to think it's an encoding issue on XM's side... I notice that the comedy and talk channels are particularly egregious, but also The Villiage (15), Bluegrass Junction (14), and some tracks on Air Musique (100) have noticeable artifacts. If I listen particularly to cymbols or when the singer/speaker hits a fricative consonant like "s" or "sh" or "f", I can hear white noise above the vocal track.
I think I'm going to find someone with a different receiver and sit my car next to theirs, both tuned to the same channel so we can compare...
Does anyone know whether the IPBus carries digital or analog signal? If it's analog I could see the noice being introduce through crossbleed. I'm loathe to take my trim panels off again, but I might have to do that and move the IPBus cable around to see if that helps.
RezaMesam did you do your install yourself? If so, is it possible that you also might've run that cable too closely to other cables or other interference sources?
Moved the IPBus, no change. Must be digital from the GEX to the D3.
I just found this similar thread, which seems to suggest that XM sound
quality is inferior to Sirius. So, maybe I'm just being too much of an audiophile...
Moved the IPBus, no change. Must be digital from the GEX to the D3.
I just found this similar thread, which seems to suggest that XM sound
quality is inferior to Sirius. So, maybe I'm just being too much of an audiophile...
FWIW, I agree. I had Sirius for 3 months (loved it) and decided to let it go in favor of XM with all its glorious icons and NavTraffic capabilities on the Z2. I was careful to do a VERY clean install, keeping all audio cables as far away from power as possible. When I first cranked it up I thought something was horribly wrong. Fortunately it turned out to be that the default chanel is highly compressed, but after flipping through the stations for the past weeks, I have to agree that the OVERALL quality is worse than Sirius. Some stations / some songs are almost worse than FM. Obviously some stations have more bandwidth / less compression / whatever, but even still, I'm a little disappointed. Not enough to ditch it though; the music is still clear enough to enjoy and the pretty interface and NavTraffic perks are enough to seal the deal.
i just installed the xm as well. i'm in brooklyn, and my FM stations come in clearer. what is with this? im running about 75 watts rms to my interior speakers so the bad quality is really blatant. is it worth switching to sirius? any suggestions to making it cleaner? i'm really dissatisfied.
I have listened to both Sirius and XM in various cars and in all cases I find the sound quality is worse than FM; no static, just too much compression. It pisses me off...but at the same time I like the selection, so I guess I will keep my XM subscription for now... 
I concur, its just the compression. They squeeze a lot of channels into the stream.
definitely agree with the 2 posters before me. i had xm in 2003-2005 and sirius for a year in 2008 when i got a year free with my truck. i just got the x920 so i decided to install xm with it as well. i picked xm because of the better music channel selection and the baseball channels. but i DEFINITELY notice a difference in the compression rates between sirius and xm. xm has a MUCH stronger compreeesion rate than sirius, hence the sound quality isnt as good. one thing i did notice though was that, having the antenna on the roof as opposed to the dashboard made a big difference in sound quality, but on certain channels, it's still very noticeable, particularly the talk channels and the NYC traffic channel 212. some of those channels sound almost robotic, but on the music channels, with the antenna properly placed, the compression isnt really that noticeable to the average person.
its definitely not enough of a problem to get me to switch to sirius. aside from music channel selection and baseball, the main reason i didnt like sirius on the x920 is because the sirius interface on pioneer units is crap. it doesnt display all the channel info, song title, artist info and channel number like xm does. with 6.1 inches of gorgeous real estate, it should be used properly in my opinion. but pioneer supports xm, not sirius.
its all a matter of what qualities are important to you and what youre willing to accept.