AM/FM/XM tuner?
On Mon, 1 Nov 2010 04:45:02 -0700, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ):
"Greg Grainger" wrote in message
Now, I have a hankering for a decent-quality tuner for
news, weather, traffic, as well as a few programs that I
liked.
I have in mind a combination unit that does all three -
AM. FM, and XM. There are a very few on the market - the
Polk xrt-12, the Marantz st7001, and the Magnum Dynalab
MD609T or MD606T have been suggested to me. None is
available in any stereo store in the area (Toronto) that
I've been able to find.
While XM may solve the commercial problem, it creates what for me has been
an intolerable sound quality problem.
Like most lossy compression schemes, XM/Sirius is difficult to listen to
seriously. Like MP3, though, it's OK in the car (where background noise
levels are high), but it's useless for headphone listening, and it's nothing
you want to hear above background from your home stereo system.
I'd rather prefer to listen to LPs with all their obvious sonic problems
than even the best-sounding XM channels, and many of the XM channels sound
far worse than the best.
Well, since LP, at its best, *CAN* sound even better than CD, that's
certainly not surprising to me. XM/Sirius is a lot like streaming internet
radio. Some 'channels' are very poor because of low data rate, and some, with
higher data rate, are OK. None are good enough for serious listening. Then
again, FM used to be good enough for serious listening, but even though it's
for different reasons, modern analog FM is really no better than XM/Sirius or
internet radio and digital FM is actually worse.
My solution for mobile listening is digital recordings I prepare on my
computer and download to the player.
Using lossless algorithms like FLAC or ALC, I trust?
I find XM to even be marginal to unacceptable even for listening to spoken
word programming. I can't believe that people who complain about the SQ of
high bitrate MP3s can stand to listen to XM, whose highest bitrate is far
worse. Right after introduction XM sounded almost as good as 128 kb MP3s,
and then they more than doubled the number of channels in the same bandwidth
and I've heard maybe added some video.
Now, I have to admit that I have never listened to anything on XM other than
classical and jazz. I don't find either of them nearly as bad as you have
described. Then again, I only listen to XM in the car these days.
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