Posting here rather than AV because this may be model/model year centric...

I just had my sirius installed. The sound quality is cr@p. I tuned to an FM rock station, then back to satellite and the FM sounds better.

For lack of a better description, the sirius sounds compressed.

It's sort of a lite version of what you hear between listening to the music channels versus listening to the traffic feed. Obviously much more subtle though.

I am wondering... is the 05 installation using an FM modulator somehwere inside the guts of the two boxes? Or is this truly going into the preamp stages in the head unit? Because it sure sounds like FM mod.

I'm not expecting miracles, those come in cars with Blose, but I did expect at least better than FM.

Please - any help you can give soon because if this keeps up, back it goes.

Thanks tons in advance!
Peet

that's the way it is. it's satellite fed not FM waves.

sure it's satellite fed... but so is my directv and that's superior to UHF VHF.

thing is, FM is limited to transmitting frequencies between 30hz and 15khz. CDs are 20hz to 20khz - so the ultra high frequencies are cut off as are the subsonics. Granted, the bose junk can't go that low (not many hifi rigs can either), but something is lost in the translation.

So sorry, satellite, that's the way it is = not the right answer. Satellite is just the carrier, the encoding and modulation are what I'm referring to.

So back to the group -- am I the only one who thinks this sounds like fm modulated junk? (to clarify... take ipod or even an outboard cd player, hook it up to an FM modulator, play it through your radio tuned to the modulator frequency...sound like sirius?)

Thanks again

My Sirius radio (self-installed, OEM) has sound quality somewhere between FM radio and CD. It definitely sounds better than my ITrip-equipped IPod.

Couple of questions, are you using an FM modulator?
Factory deck in conjunction with the factory Sirius tuner?
Did they use an IP Bus cable from the Sirius tuner to the deck?

In my daily driver (Honda), I have a Pioneer deck with a Pioneer XM satellite tuner hooked up with the IP Bus cable (all digital, no analog in the path) and the sound is good. I had to adjust the deck to bump up the volume of the XM to get it on par with the CD/MP3 player, but once that was done, it's solid.

Hi. Thanks for the inputs...

This is the factory radio (goes in trunk). Not sure how it was installed, dealer did it - does anyone have a copy of the installation docs? I wonder if there are multiple options and they took a shortcut.

Theoretically it is using the bus, but who knows - I didn't install it. I may lift up the mats/etc and have a look tonight. That may give a clue.

But - it does sound FM modulated. not quite the itrip flavor where it's wireless, but the inline type of modulator that is hardwired.

It's pretty sad that I can hear the difference on such a lousy sound system

Peet