On 1/12/2012 11:40 AM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Thu, 12 Jan 2012 09:49:15 -0800,
wrote:

What is the bit rate for XM/Sirius music channels? I've seen people say
that it's as low as 32 kb/s, but that their streaming is 128 kb/s. But
if you're streaming, you may as well get Pandora rather than satellite.

It's ugly. There are 100 streams, each 8Kbits/sec.

I found a chart here http://www.xm411.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=33127.
It's nearly four years old, but since the satellite radio providers
obviously don't want to talk about bit rates, it'll have to do. It's
pretty clear where the complaints of audio quality on satellite are
coming from. Much lower than even free Pandora in most cases. I can only
imagine the kind of stuff we'd see posted here if digital terrestrial
radio tried to get away with some of those bit rates for music. I can
just imagine some of the radio conglomerates thinking about three 32
kbps digital music channels (or seven once analog is turned off).

What's amazing is that after coming close to failing, satellite radio in
the U.S. is now doing okay financially (not great, but the threat of
bankruptcy is over) so obviously there are many consumers for whom audio
quality is of minimal importance. They even raised prices recently. I
could buy a couple of hundred music CDs at garage sales for what it cost
for satellite radio for a year.

On long trips we like to listen to audio books, and most libraries have
a very good selection.