Lucky wrote:
"D Peter Maus" wrote in message
...
David wrote:
On 3 Aug 2005 06:53:07 -0700, wrote:
In that case, all they'd need to get rid of is the interface to the uP
and a mini-USB jack.
Steve
Not going to happen Fetish Boy. People want freedom of choice.
What do you have against a hi-fi feed of the BBC World Service 24
hours a day?
XM's feed of BBCWS is hardly Hi-Fi. In many cases it sounds more like a
low bit MP3 with shaped response to filter out the higher levelss of in
spectrum aliasing noise. More refined than 5975, lower noise for sure. And
more detailed, perhaps.
Talk channels are more bandwidth limited than the music channels on XM.
Most aren't stereo, either.
XM is a lot of things, but one thing it's never going to be is Hi-fi.
I once called up Siri's sales dept and asked them if they broadcast their
music in stereo. The first guy said yes, then when I said if he's sure and
can I have his name, he told me to hold on. He switched me to someone else.
This person said as far as he knows, it's in stereo but he can't be 100%
sure.
How can a company not know if their music signals are broadcast in stereo or
not? A poster in a group showed me pictures of Siri's receivers, and a few
said "stereo" on them so I guess it is in stereo. I don't know about XM. I
know at one time Siri had more sats in space then XM but they launched a new
sat like 4-6 months ago.
I won't pay for the service either. I can find all the music I want on FM or
on the net. Radio waves were meant to be free for listeners with commercials
supporting the station. To me, this sat radio business is a created
offspring of radio that has been hyped too much. But from many people who
have the service, they say they'll never go back to "old style FM" again.
I surely won't pay $13 or $15 a month for it. If it was like $3 a month, I'd
try it.
Lucky
The music channels are in stereo. The talk channels, most but not
all, are not.
As for whether the goof in the phone center actually knows what's
being broadcast...they know what the cards, or the monitor in front of
them says. Whether music is in stereo is not a question that comes up
very often. Many of the phone monkeys don't subscribe. Many for the
samee reasons you don't.
There was a discussion here a couple of years ago about stereo vs
mono broadcast and public perception. Most listeners don't really
understand stereo. Audiophiles obviously don't fall into this class, but
the rank and file don't really understand what differientiates a stereo
signal from monaural sound. For them, as long as the pilot is lit, its
stereo. For some, even, if there are two speakers, it's stereo. No
matter what's actually coming out of them.
And receiver manufacturers haven't really helped this. In order to
keep fringe signal noise down, most receivers have a blend circuit that
slowly combines the left and the right channels according to signal
strength, or in some cases, strenght of the difference subcarrier. In
many markets even the best stereo signals are heard by more than half of
listeners at any given moment in varying degrees of mono, due to the
blend circuit in their receivers. Listeners rarely notice and never
complain. Actual stereo audio is just not on their radar.
When AM stereo was new, a number of stations I was involved in
actually broadcast mono audio, but lit the pilot for it's cool factor.
No one ever noticed.
So don't be surprised if someone at the phone hole can't answer your
question. They've not been briefed, because the question almost never
comes up.
It's such a non priority, that my XM receiver, while being a stereo
receiver, doesn't have a stereo annunciator. When it is you can hear it.
When it isn't you don't.
Usually, unless there's something dramatically wide, you don't notice
it one way or the other.
This may be part of the reason that DRM doesn't generate more buzz
than it does. If stereo audio was such a priority, most SW broadcasters
would embrace it, promote it, shout it from the mountaintops, and DRM
would be standard on radios worldwide.
So far, like AM stereo, and IBOC here, there are more stations
transmitting DRM for no apparent reason than there are listeners
clamoring for radios to hear it.