Satellite Radio on HTPC

I'm building an HTPC for my studio and I was wondering if the quality of Sirius Internet radio is good enough to simply run the audio through the HTPC. Is it at least CD-quality as they say it is?

I only have it in the car and while its much better then radio I'd be hard pressed to say it plays better the the CD's.

Originally Posted by A Canuker

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I only have it in the car and while its much better then radio I'd be hard pressed to say it plays better the the CD's.

+1. I think the only place sirius says its CD quality is if you stream it.

I keep sirius running all the time on my computer (classical stations) and would say the quality is good. I don't notice anything that would ruin the music, but I am not that picky about such things.

You should look into downloading the sirius widget from yahoo. There is no timeout as exists on the website and you can run it on multiple machines at the same time, something else you can't do if you use the website.

It's not "FM broadcast quality". Disclaimer- I work in broadcasting and have biz relationships with XM and Sirius.

They give more bandwidth to the classical music and select other music channels but talk runs on a much-more limited bandwidth. If you are an audiophile- I would also say it's technically not "CD" quality as. like FM, HD and any other broadcast channel, it's compressed/compelled.

Originally Posted by Slopho

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+1. I think the only place sirius says its CD quality is if you stream it.

I believe you have to pay for a upgraded stream for that service.

It's not "FM broadcast quality".

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Yea...more like "MP3 quality".

If you are an audiophile- I would also say it's technically not "CD" quality as. like FM, HD and any other broadcast channel, it's compressed/compelled.

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Well, "technicalities" only mean so much. Yea, on paper, it has better dynamic range & frequency response than analogue FM, but like anything...the proof is in the pudding...it sounds flat and lifeless. So yea...I'm sure poorly recorded, compressed music sounds better in digital HD than poorly recorded, highly compressed music sent over the analogue airwaves. Who cares...I don't like either choice.

The vast majority of people are listening to ****** commercial radio stations, broadcasting ****** music, recorded compressed in the first place, broadcasted compressed, and listened to on equipment that couldn't discern the difference anyway.

Now...I happen to live in an area where I am within a couple of miles of several good stations (so I have great a signal), that still choose to broadcast without heavy compression (Canada has better FM broadcast standards than the USA anyway). They also happen to play music that generally tends to be of better recording quality in the first place.

I was listening the other night to a live radio studio broadcast that I swear sounded as good as a high-end vinyl or cd rig...I was so amazed. In fact, because FM broadcast is my main listening source, I am now on the hunt to replace my vintage Quad FM3, for one of those 70's reference tuners.

FM has the potential to be fantastic quality, but like everything else, that's not the priority.

Man, the race to the bottom just gets faster and faster.