satellite radio quality

[Vicseek]

I recently took a ride in a buddy's car and his Satellite radio quality was amazing! I usually get a 6mo subscription during the summers for the boat but in the years past I've been very disappointed with the quality and have opted for CD's, and AUX inputs with IPhone etc.. Do I perhaps have a bad receiver or outdated one? The music sounds tingy like low bandwidth or degraded quality in my boat.
I really like the option of Satellite however, I don't know what to do with the poor quality.

[BCRider]

With all of the options for streaming sources I don't really know why anyone would pay for XM/Sirius. I've had it in the past and most recently had the 6 months free subscription when I bought my truck but I was really all that sad when it expired. I listen to my phone pretty much 24/7 running all my own music. In the summer I was rocking soundcloud and really liked the tunes. A person mentioned "tropical house" and I never looked back. Was the best boat tunes I've probably ever had.lol. There are so many other options that I've never used but know that a lot of others on here do use such as Pandora, Songza (now Google music) and many others.

[D&P Powell]

I paid for Sirius in our last boat. I had some initial set up issues, but CHPTHRIL helped me through those by making sure I had the right antenna set up for the system I was using. BCRider, streaming sources don't always work if you can't get reception (often challenging or impossible at Lake Mead, Lake Mohave, and Lake Havasu), whereas we maintained a signal everywhere we went with Sirius. I honestly wish we could stream more, because I like our Pandora pre-sets better than Sirius stations... but for a constant music source, Sirius is the way to go. I will be eventually setting up our new boat with Sirius again. Vicseek - I recommend you reach out to CHPTHRIL for set up advice. Good luck.

[chpthril]

What SAT receiver and antenna do you have?

[M&M]

2000 20ci. Missouri Ozarks. I got Sirius for Christmas last year and had a cradle installed in my truck and boat. I slide the receiver out of the cradle and take it to the boat. Works great. No commercials and sounds good. Only one problem... When I am parked in my dock (metal roof) reception fades in and out. M&M

[BCRider]

I understand you can't stream everywhere and Sirius/Xm still has a leg up in that situation. I don't run in to that issue often myself and if I do I just run my phone.

[Bryan]

I use the ONYX receiver... Put a seperate cradle kit in each of my work trucks so I can use the one radio in any of them.. Don't know why you couldn't just add a cradle kit to a boat. Your sound quality issue has problaby been getting the signal from the satellite radio/receiver into your stereo headunit cleanly. Are you using an FM modulator? Trash it.. Use an aux cable and you shouldn't have any problems

[Z1owner]

I also don't have reception or internet for streaming where we boat. I bought the ONYX receiver and car kit (I think $80 at Best Buy). I plug it into a 12v outlet and use the aux in jack on the head unit. I tried the FM modulator, it works, but the sound is much better using the aux cable. I also noticed that my signal would go out once in awhile. I think I've narrowed it down to the location of my external antenna relative to the bimini top? But that's a minor issue in exchange for having a good and reliable selection of music. For $15/mo during the summer, not sure how to beat it for my situation.

[chpthril]

I also don't have reception or internet for streaming where we boat. I bought the ONYX receiver and car kit (I think $80 at Best Buy). I plug it into a 12v outlet and use the aux in jack on the head unit. I tried the FM modulator, it works, but the sound is much better using the aux cable. I also noticed that my signal would go out once in awhile. I think I've narrowed it down to the location of my external antenna relative to the bimini top? But that's a minor issue in exchange for having a good and reliable selection of music. For $15/mo during the summer, not sure how to beat it for my situation.

For better reception, I suggest the SRA-25 marine antenna over those magnet type that come with those kits.

[Z1owner]

Thanks for the suggestion on the antenna. I'm ready for summer so I can go experiment!

[Vicseek]

Here are two pics of my setup that came stock with the boat in 2010. I just have never got the crisp/clear music like I've heard in audio systems. Perhaps I could upgrade my antenna? It gets signal like I said and works okay, it's just scratchy and below average quality. My primary boating lake has NO SIGNAL or else, of course I'd agree to simply stream Pandora etc..

I did read just now that apparently you can find a menu on their website that lets you adjust the quality to MAX. Not sure if this means more buffering is required but perhaps it's also aimed at the cell phone/wifi users and NOT the Satellite people. IDK.. sounds like they don't have enough bandwidth for every channel in order to produce a good quality sound. Either that or the compression algorithm they use is the weak link.

Sirus 1.jpg
Sirus 2.jpg