Sirius bitrate

OK, those of you that know me well enough know that I hate compressed music in pretty much ANY incarnation, but I am very quietly (and not terribly seriously) considering the Eclipse Siruis module for my deck. I am of the understanding that XM uses AAC (which I H-A-T-E, thank you iPod...), possibly AAC-Plus, and that Sirius uses something called ePAC, and that Sirius uses between 24 and 48kbps data rate - a pretty HUGE difference. Other than this, I have been able to discover litle else. How close is this? Is ePAC a decent logarithm? What's the artifacting like? How does it sound overall? My brother has it in his Camry (same Eclipse module), but all he has is 4's in the dash, and a pair of 6's in the rear... I wasn't terribly impressed in his car, and my system is capable of FAR higher resolution. Am I going to suffer some pretty severe listener fatigue with this? Talk radio would be little of my overall listening use, I would really want to know about the music capabilities... Any input from anybody?It all reminds me of something that Molière once said to Guy de Maupassant at a café in Vienna: "That's nice. You should write it down."

I consider satelite radio to be in between cd and fm. The high frequencies on Sirius seem to sound brittle at times and the vocals are overemphazied on some songs making them sound like they have a lisp. Although I like Sirius radio you will notice a difference. Not enough to cause you not to listen to it usaully. Unfortunately there is usaully no way to audition Sirius.

Yeah, see... that's the artifacting to which I refer... The in-between slotting of satellite radio, from what I have heard of XM is being a bit generous. The "lisping" you refer to is the artifacting that I notice most, and it is also the noise that causes the most fatigue for me. That destruction of the high frequencies also damages DRASTICALLY cymbals and high-hats, upper registers on piano, pipe organ and orchestra, and ruins the female voice. (huh huh... he said "organ") You say I will notice a difference... What do you mean by that? A difference in what? Satellite vs. CD? Satellite vs. FM? XM vs Sirius? I have been reading some of the satllite radio forums, and the preferences between XM and Sirius seem to be fairly evenly divided. Also noted, (high bit-rate, i.e 192kbps or better) MP3 marginally beats both flavors of satellite radio in many blind tests. If that's REALLY the case, why would ANYBODY pay 12 dollars a month for what is fairly obviously an inferior format? Convenience? Programming? I wouldn't ever listen to half of the channels, anyway. $12 a month? Not for me thanks... (I hate country, rap, Howard Stern, hard rock, campesina, most sports...) All I would want it for would be 70's, 80's, Classical, and Comedy. And 99 percent of the time I wouldn't even be listening to it. Geez, was it THAT easy to talk myself out of it? It all reminds me of something that Molière once said to Guy de Maupassant at a café in Vienna: "That's nice. You should write it down."

I meant you would notice a difference in satelite versus cd. I agree with you, if you don't like many of the channels its definately not worth the money. Its mostly about variety, certainly not sq.

haemphyst wrote: If that's REALLY the case, why would ANYBODY pay 12 dollars a month for what is fairly obviously an inferior format? Convenience? Programming? I wouldn't ever listen to half of the channels, anyway. $12 a month? Not for me thanks...

The same could be said for cablevision. Do you watch all the channels ?

furflier wrote: haemphyst wrote: If that's REALLY the case, why would ANYBODY pay 12 dollars a month for what is fairly obviously an inferior format? Convenience? Programming? I wouldn't ever listen to half of the channels, anyway. $12 a month? Not for me thanks...  The same could be said for cablevision. Do you watch all the channels ?

ow... Point taken! It all reminds me of something that Molière once said to Guy de Maupassant at a café in Vienna: "That's nice. You should write it down."