Satellite Radio Receiver Question

[lawdog]

For those who know more than I do, are there varying types of sat radio receivers? I ask because some in certain cars sound markedly different. In my Raptor, like in an Audi I had a few years back, the sat radio sounds heavily compressed and mid-rangey. In contrast, my wife's 2013 Mercedes and a Chrysler 300M I rented over the weekend, the Sat radio sounds much clearer, almost like any other digital input. Why is that? Are some receivers better than others? If so, can I swap ours out/upgrade it?

 

[lawdog]

It seems one way around it for cars like ours where the sound is poor is to stream it from your phone with your Sirius/XM subscription. I may try that.

 

[Booth9999]

Did you try to adjust the settings?

 

[lawdog]

Did you try to adjust the settings?

Are you talking about the general audio settings or something else relative to the sat radio? If the former, yeah, and it's still just a crappy, compressed source. Based on what I've experienced and what I read in a CNET article, some head units just do a better job with it, and some new amps will clean it up a bit.

 

[lawdog]

OK, I found another plausible explanation...Sirius vs XM quality, with Sirius being worse due to satellites/compression used. Ford/Sync has only the Sirius tuner, not the SiriusXM tuner, which supposedly has the better sound quality. In my case, I checked, and the Raptor definitely just has the Sirius receiver, and the 300M rental I got had the SiriusXM receiver...noticeable difference. Oh well.

https://www.soundandvision.com/content/siriusxm-then-and-now