nighthawk

I just installed my XM radio and the sound quality isnt a lot to brag about...I thought it was supposed to be CD quality?

I installed my antenna near by 3rd brake light inside the car...would the sound quality get better if I placed it on the outside of the car?

How does everyone elses sound quality compare with say FM..AM..or CD.

BTW..I have the standard Pioneer Radio and not ML.

al503

I'm not familiar with the stock system but does it have direct inputs or did you get an aftermarket fm modulated xm?

nighthawk

No I got the one from Lexus-parts that integrates....I don't know maybe thats just how it is and the sound isn't supposed to be really good.

jmaynard

I've had no complaints about the quality of my Lexus-supplied XM's audio.

If you're getting signal with the inside mount, you'll get as much audio quality as it's capable of. It's a digital data stream, and bad reception manifests itself as stuttering and outright dropout.

That said, it's probably a Good Idea to mount the antenna on the outside so that you get reception under marginal conditions; there's no reason not to. The antenna will survive getting washed with no problems.

Evitzee

A lot depends on the quality of the original recording.....garbage in, garbage out. But if it is a clean recording the sound is as good as a CD, imo. I was listening to the '70's on 7' channel today and although most recordings made in that era weren't all that great I was quite surprised at the depth of the bass and clarity on many of the tracks. As good as a CD. My antenna is mounted outside, so don't know if that makes a difference. Overall I'm very pleased with the sound quality of XM.

al503

If it's connected right, it should be somewhat close to CD quality. (From what I gather, some frequencies are compressed due to bandwidth limitations but they're in the higher frequencies.)

If you're getting static, alternator whine, etc., you may have a loose connection or even a bad tuner. Unless the music is cutting out totally on you, changing the location of the antenna probably won't do anything. Since the music is digital, you either get the signal or you don't.

pisaykotik

In my experience, some local FM stations sound better than many XM channels.

PhilipMSPT

iTrader: (5)

There are some High-Def XM channels, which are typically the Classical and Pop channels. Those channels provide much higher quality than most of the Rock or Rap channels...

pisaykotik

I went to their website and it shows only chan. 76 is broadcast in HD.

PhilipMSPT

iTrader: (5)

I think that is a Classical channel. However, sometimes, other channels have special HD telecasts, depending on what the broadcast is.

mr350

I hate the expression "CD Quality". It's a meaningless marketing term. Digital modulation does eliminate analog noise but in most cases it gets heavily compressed.
The XM system operates at 12.5MHz BW and has ~170 channels so the bitrates are adjusted depending on the channel. So the end result is you get mediocre to poor sound. But in this day and age of mp3 files, I don't think most people even know what good sound is.

nighthawk

Does anyone think it will get better over time? Its better than AM but worse than most of the FM stations in my area (LA/OC)

pisaykotik

If anything, it got worse IMO. The IS stock audio is much better than my '05 MDX's, but somehow I think the XM quality in my MDX was better. More compression maybe???

warhummer

CD quality usually refers to the sampling rate that the original recording was made (44.1 kHz). Satellite radio (XM and Sirius) does suffer from compression loss throughout most of their stations. If you know what you're getting (i.e. reduced sound quality) it's not such a big deal, but don't expect high-quality sound from satellite radio. FYI the DVD-Audio capability in the ML sound system has a 192 kHz sampling rate for comparison. Unfortunately the technology is just about DOA and limited to mostly classical recordings.

blk06is350

listen to this guy, i couldn't have said it any better.