i don't like that the delphi unit has to have a seperate fm tuner, and a seperate everything

i have no desire to have it in the house, i am going to be getting the pioneer unit with the built in fm transmitter.

i like the idea of being able to tune my radio to a frequency and pick up the radio, and i don't listen to music at home, i watch TV.

and the pioneer unit is sooooo much smaller, it could fit IN the ash tray.

Know why? CLEARCHANNEL. Those bastards basically have a monopoly on radio stations... I know for a fact that EVERY RADIO STATION around here is OWNED by clear channel, with the exception of four (2 am, 2 fm). These bastards buy a station, fire everyone, change it's format, and make it some boring station just like the stations you here in every other city in the USA. I really don't like hte idea of PAYING for radio, because I hav a feeling clearchannel will be purchasing them at one point as well.

- Rob

It's so true! I think every market has a story about a really great radio station that was bought up by clear channel and turned to utter dog doo. It's just baffling how this company is still generating revenue, considering everything it seems to touch turns to s*it.

Clear Channel also has a stake in many of the music venues, so it is also responsible for jacking up many of the prices when it comes to concert going.

Unfortunately, Clear Channel also owns a stake in XM, which kept me away from XM until this past december. I was not willing to put more money in their pockets. But in reality, Clear Channel is only a moderate share holder; I think it owns something like 5% of the company. Let's hope it stays that way.

Are you talking about a pioneer head unit with a seperate XM receiver? Or are you talking about FM Modulation? In the case of FM modulation, you will find the audio quality to be greatly depleted, since it is being decoded from digital and turned into an FM signal. Most XMers with audio quality complaints are those who FM modulated.

The Delphi is the only stand-alone XM receiver. All others need the help of a head unit with a receiver.

If you have a decent satellite radio ready head unit, then yeah it definitely makes more sense just to get a normal receiver.

But if you're interested in sound quality, stay away from FM modulation.

OK, I have a pioneer Head Unit which is XM ready, meaning that you can buy a reciever unit that can be accessed through the existing pioneer reciever. However, that navigation and display functions of that setup are lowsy and limited. Therefore I bought the delphi unit which connects via RCA cables to my head unit. There is no modulation. I wouldn't stand for that crap in my car. The sound excedes CD or MP3 quality. It is awesome.

From a technical standpoint, I highly doubt it EXCEEDS the quality from a CD.

- Rob

Agreed since CDs are plain uncompressed wave files. You can't get better than that except for a live person singing next to you. :)

L

The sound definitely does not exceed or even meet CD quality. That would be impossible due to bandwidth restrictions.

There are all sorts of discussions about that at the XM forum I posted. Go check it out if interested.

And that damn XM stock is up another 2 to 11.

i was talking FM modulation
being able to just tune the radio into a frequency and pick it up on my normal radio

the delphi is a bit out of my price range, and i have no real problem w/ my local staions, DVE is all i listen to, and it's clearchannel and i'm ok...

i like techno... and short of buying cd's which could get very expensive for the variety and having to change cd's all the time xm is my choice

i don't mind the quality through fm modulation

XM was my first major stock investment. I bought it at about 4 bucks a share and i'm very happy with its performance. I went out and bought the delphi unit for my SVX about a month ago, and i havent used my CD player since. Some people say "well i dont need it because I have CDs and a radio." They just dont understand. All it takes is to get you using it and you're hooked. I strongly urge everyone to try it out.

Mike

XM radio quality is actually not that great. It is much better than FM,but it isnt anywhere close to CD. It is pretty compressed. I can live with it just fine, though.

Mike

xm and clear channel
 

A friend of mine and I, just opened a beer and wine bar in Idaho Springs. For music, we decided on xm radio. We bought the Delphi unit with the home adaptor kit from Best Buy for just under 200 bucks. The monthly subscription is $24.95 for a commmercial business. Audio quality is outstanding, but not as good as cd, because of the reasons already mentioned. Great variety of programming.


BTW: I agree with Rob (there is a first time for everything ;) ). Clear Channel owns 8 stations in the Denver market ( including KOA, KRFX, KBCO, etc etc), as well as most of the concert venues ( including having exclusive rights to Red Rocks concerts).
Being a free market republican (a capitalist pig), I despise goverment interference in the market place. However, the airwaves are part of the public domain. Since CC acquired all these stations, there is less variety, competition, and quality of programming has suffered. It is the FCCs' responsibility to govern the airwaves, and there is pressure on them to review ownership rules.
I worked for a radio station in Texas for 5 years. It was a small chain of stations (6 or 7) owned by one family. It was one of the first group of stations to be bought by Clear Channnel. The owner now sits on CC's board of directors.....
ClearChannel is not good for the radio/entertainment industry.:mad:

ClearChannel owns quite a bit of XM. Did you know that? :)

Mike

The psycho audio geek in me has to respond to this... CD Audio is quite compressed, in fact the compression has a standard called PCM (Pulse Code Modulation) and is standardized at 16 bits and 44.1khz sampling rate, which when extrapolated to the top and bottom of a wave form gives you 22.05khz frequency range. That's quite compressed compared to the de facto audio standard, which is analog vinyl. Records are fully uncompressed "wav" type recordings, and carry a huge wealth of detail and realism that simply isn't possible on CD. CD lacks realism in the higher frequencies due to its limited sampling rate... in the bass frequencies the 44.1khz available do sample the waveform very often, leading to a good approximation of the original. In the higher frequencies the sampling rate lends itself less readily to good sound, because in many cases it is sampling the wave at most perhaps 3 or 4 times per peak, leaving the D/A converter to oversample and extrapolate the rest of that wave manually as it creates the analog waveform on the back end. Not a very good way to do it.

The compression and lack of realism in CD recordings is what has given rise to HDCD (20bit double encoding), DTS CD, DVD-Audio, and most recently Super Audio CD.

SACD is currently the best digital audio format that we have been able to mass produce, it has a 24bit word length and a sampling rate that extends into the Mhz. This leads to far more natural recordings, better harmonic extension, and more realistic soundstage due to the expanded "room" acoustics present in the recording. Frequency range on the better players is 1hz to 150khz. :D

Enjoy. ;)


/geek mode off