hwh wrote:
You don't want to hear the simple truth: no broadcast system can sound
properly at 40 or 48 kbps. Both Sirius and HD use rates like that, or
less. And therefore they sound bad. I've heard them both and yes: in
practice even on a rental car stereo they do not match the FM produced
by the same receiver and speakers.

That's a codec problem. With currently available codecs, you can get FM radio
quality with 64k with AAC (aka MP4 audio). This is roughly equivalent to
128k MP3, which is good enough for a car radio or tiny earphones, but not
CD or even CRO2 Dolby cassete quality.

Since I don't know what codec they use, I can't say what they need to increase
their bit rates to, but assuming they do (or could) use AAC, they would have
to cut their number of channels by as much as one third to compensate for
the higher bit rate.

Geoff.
--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson N3OWJ/4X1GM
To help restaurants, as part of the "stimulus package", everyone must order
dessert. As part of the socialized health plan, you are forbidden to eat it. :-)