Sirius satellite radio quality

BoxcarRacer · #1 08-09-2011, 05:44 PM

hello just picked up new 2012 a couple of weeks ago and just activated the free year subscription to Sirius satellite radio. the quality sounds pretty crappy and is comparable to a pair of cheap speakers. the radio quality is noticeably a lot better. is anybody having this issue also? iPod music comes through top notch btw. heard something about a bad head unit on the forum but not sure it affects the later models.

thanks in advance

bigx5er · #2 08-09-2011, 06:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BoxcarRacer

hello just picked up new 2012 a couple of weeks ago and just activated the free year subscription to Sirius satellite radio. the quality sounds pretty crappy and is comparable to a pair of cheap speakers. the radio quality is noticeably a lot better. is anybody having this issue also? iPod music comes through top notch btw. heard something about a bad head unit on the forum but not sure it affects the later models.

thanks in advance

The sound is poor and it's not a BMW issue. Sirius has decided to offer quantity over quality with their limited satellite bandwidth. Some channels sound better than others, they have various bandwidth per channel. Note that it's more complex than that as they really do real-time bandwidth adjustment based on all channels.

In other words a fancy way to produce crappy sound.

BoxcarRacer · #3 08-09-2011, 06:31 PM

thanks for clarifying that; i plan not to renew the subscription when it ends.

snowsurfer · #4 08-10-2011, 09:41 PM

Do you have premium sound on your 2012? I have prem sound and it sounds pretty decent as long as I'm not driving through tunnel's / heavy foliage.

BoxcarRacer · #5 08-11-2011, 12:04 AM

I don't have the premium sound option just HD and satellite radio; maybe that's a contributing factor of the bad quality I am experiencing.

i been using the Pandora app in lieu of sirius and am content.

4MoJoe · #6 08-11-2011, 10:57 AM

I notice a difference with it too. I have some of the same songs on my iPod that I hear on let's say 20 on 20 and there is a big difference in quality. I didn't notice this when I had XM Radio at first on my 2004 X5 and I always thought it sounded good. Pandora is a good option too.

blue dragon · #7 08-11-2011, 11:19 AM

Sirius quality is crap.

bigx5er · #8 08-11-2011, 05:40 PM

You can put a million dollar system in front of Sirius, it's still will sound terrible. Do a test, listen to a song on a CD (or even good FM) and then Sirius. You will be shocked.

Pandora at 128K does sound OK. Much better option as long as you are around cell towers.

AtomiX · #9 08-12-2011, 09:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bigx5er

You can put a million dollar system in front of Sirius, it's still will sound terrible. Do a test, listen to a song on a CD (or even good FM) and then Sirius. You will be shocked.

Pandora at 128K does sound OK. Much better option as long as you are around cell towers.

ditto that. heavy compression at work, though some stations do sound less awful. my wife is not particular, as she's more into the content vs. quality. since I don't buy CDs anymore and rely on mp3s, it's sucky either way. I haven't been able to really put the premium sound to the test cus I literally gave away all my CDs years ago.

BoxcarRacer · #10 08-15-2011, 05:32 PM

turns out it might be some kind of equipment malfunction; mp3 dock, cds, radio and hard drive music sound awful now. talking it in this saturday and will update status once i hear from the service adviser.