Sirius Premium Internet Radio - Sound Quality Superior to Satellite Radio

For those of you who haven't tried out the Premium Internet Radio service from Sirius, you have really been missing out. You're guaranteed to hear your music channels at a CD quality of 128k. With good headphones you will notice a difference right away when tuned to your favorite music channels. It's especially great if you run it through a home Sirius XM ready A/V receiver with the 8-pin DIN connection like the SIRIUS Connect Home Kit SCHDOC1 for all Stiletto and PNP receivers. It also allows you to navigate your radio directly from your television screen.

Overall, Sirius subscribers who are true audiophiles will no doubt want to at least SAMPLE the service. At $2.99 for one month you really can't lose in my opinion. I've been enjoying Sirius Premium Internet Radio for over a year now and plan to continue to as long as they offer it at a reasonable price.

Just want to clarify, so the public is not misled, that "yes" Sirius Internet Radio is GREAT and Superior to many others, I'm a subscriber myself.

However, 128k is NOT CD -Quality... not is it close to CD Quality.

For technical sakes, 320k is CD Quality. 128k is more like FM Quality.

Sorry that this is my first post, but just felt the need to keep information consistent and accurate.

(for the sake of ALL of us shareholders)

I agree with Weelz, although to the untrained ear most people would never notice. That being said, I cant tell you whether a cd has been burned at 128k or it is full quality. There is just that little something missing from the full range of sound.

Thanks,

The untrained ear would be lucky :) because if you listened to the 320k difference vs 128k with a really good pair of Bose earphones, you would forever be able to hear the differences, even on cheap $1.99 head phones.

It's like you're ruined forever LOL. But now we are digressing to a different subject and I've yet to introduce myself!

Fair enough. I was quoting what they state on the SIrius website as far as "CD-Quality". What I can say is that I upgraded to Premium Internet over a year ago and will never go back. Because as some of you can hear the difference between 128k and 320k - I have to believe most anyone can hear the difference between 32k (standard Internet Radio) and 128k.

Yes, I'd agree that anyone should see a signifigance when differing 32k from 128k

We were discussing this on another forum and I thought I would share this response I received.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jgatie

It all depends on the compression algorithm used. You can't compare two bitrates, one encoded via PCM and the other encoded via (???), and definitively state one is better than the other. With dedicated decoding hardware (which every radio has) it is very possible to have a 128k stream that is accousically transparent to PCM. I find it unlikely that this is the case, but it is certainly closer to CD quality than the false 300:128 ratio claimed on that other forum.

In other words, since the high bitrate internet feed is most certainly better than 42% of CD quality, the comparison is moot.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by SSF

We were discussing this on another forum and I thought I would share this response I received.

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They are correct, HOWEVER, let's really delve into technical detail:

(I'm in the online radio biz myself so we'll consider this a professional statement)

The Sirius Web Player is a combination Java/Flash Player designed by (we'll leave the brand name out) third party provider.

Flash is NOT capable of specific plugin codecs such as mp3Pro or PCM (for example). Not only does Flash limit you to do the legacy codecs, but also the compression, plain old standard 128/44100 or 64/22050 (can't do 24000 in flash) so unfortunately, you can't even try to push a 64kbps MP3 encode at 24khz to get that extra little umph of spectrum.

So bottom line "Sirius offers 32k for free" (which is definately "getting what you pay for") or 128/44100 "basic mp3 encoded stream" for $2.99 per month.

I do NOT want to spam/self-promote my online radio, but if asked privately, I'll send some direct links for you to compare how the same encoded mp3 file sounds over flash, in comparison to an agent such as Winamp with a plugin activated.

Could that explain why I think Startplayr sounds better than the sirius sites player?

That's very interesting stuff and I appreciate you sharing the technical details with us! :)

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Originally Posted by imromo24

Could that explain why I think Startplayr sounds better than the sirius sites player?

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Is that a hardware based Sirius Internet stream player? If it is, then I'd say most likely, you hit the nail on the head.


SSF:

Your welcome, I learned that Info the hard way with the whole "radio station stuff" so I try to shy my listeners away from the "Flash Player" even though the "Flash Player" is the most universal for everyone.

Its not a wifi hardware player, but forgive me if im wrong, it isn't browser based, ie it plays with firefox and we closed.

It only sounds slightly better but better at least.

This?

http://starplayr.com/ourproducts.html


Yes, it will potentially sound better because it's just a native application written in whatever language. So it appears to be taking the raw stream, provided by Sirius, and NOT forwarding it through a "Flash Player"

It's probably more "win-ampish" but proprietary to Sirius' format. This all makes sense (to me) why you would hear a noticable difference from Sirius' normal web based player.

Thanks! 8-9-10 (needed 10 characters to post)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by HottWeelz

Just want to clarify, so the public is not misled, that "yes" Sirius Internet Radio is GREAT and Superior to many others, I'm a subscriber myself.

However, 128k is NOT CD -Quality... not is it close to CD Quality.

For technical sakes, 320k is CD Quality. 128k is more like FM Quality.

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128 kbps isn't like FM quality. When MP3s first came out, all the tunes on the net were 128 kbps/sec. Even now, I struggle between 128 and 160 kbps (industry norm on iTunes) when burning/transferring mp3s onto my mp3 player. I can't really hear the difference. To go for 320 kbps, imo, is overkill and takes up too much storage and definitely bandwidth. However, this $3/month charge is one additional add-on that's costing the subscribers more. All these little costs add up. Sirius/XM should 've always had 128 kbps for their music channels. It's just now they're testing the waters with different , and some may say, desperate ways of getting more money from their subscribers to keep their sinking ship afloat.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by HottWeelz

Thanks,

The untrained ear would be lucky :) because if you listened to the 320k difference vs 128k with a really good pair of Bose earphones, you would forever be able to hear the differences, even on cheap $1.99 head phones.

It's like you're ruined forever LOL. But now we are digressing to a different subject and I've yet to introduce myself!

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Yeah, I'm sitting here obsessing over my HTPC ripping lossless DVD-Audio in 5.1 channels at 24-bit/96kHz.

The 128k stream is better and tolerable, but certainly not CD quality, and have you heard how badly XM is compressed lately?

I called Sirius the other day and I was told that for an additional $3/month, you can stream audio at 168 Kbps in comparison to their standard 84 Kbps.

wow noob, thanks. i didnt know that

gkarmie, sorry to get your hopes up. the person at Sirius I was talking to you was an idiot. After confirming from different sources, the max rate is 128 kbps via INTERNET only. You can't get the 128 kbps in car, but only if you listen through the internet...kinda defeats the purpose, doesn't it?