# Sonic Tap - Again



## Impala1ss (Jul 22, 2007)

Since the changeover to Sonic Tap I have been very disappointed in the quality of the sound, and the quality of the programming, especially when compared to the prior XM channels.

The quality is probably DirecTV's fault through whatever they are doing to the original signal.

The quality of the music that I listen to - Bluegrass - isn't very good.

I have been in email contact with the head programmer for the music and have probably learned why it is so bad. They have a very limited data base of songs - 1,000 ( I have almost that many on my iPhone) - which have been provided to Sonic Tap for free. They buy very little music to play. That explains why many songs are unknown, or are covers by unknown musicians.

In the Bluegrass music genre, most songs are classics, i.e. songs recorded many years ago by (now) famous artists. Bluegrass fans love these classics and there are many thousands of them. To hear a classic performed by a "no name" band isn't worth listening to. It would be like listening to 1940's music, but instead of hearing it played by Tommy Dorsey, Glenn Miller, etc, you hear it played by a new band who has no credentials, and seldom hear the original '40's music..

Now, there are many new Bluegrass songs each year, performed by famous artists, e.g. Del McCourey, etc., and some new artists who are just beginning and these have a right to be played also but when you have mostly no-names playing no name music, can you really say it is the Bluegrass music that fans want to listen to?

The programmer suggested that I give him a list of songs and artists that I would like to hear and maybe they could buy some. Sounds like a mom and pop operation, not close to the status of XM music.

Guess there is no hope through Sonic Tap. I'll just have to bring my portable XM radio in from the car when I listen, which is every day for many hours.

Directv should be aware that they are not providing a quality service. ::


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## bflora (Nov 6, 2007)

Classic Rock channel 833 goes back and forth between stereo and mono, often switching during a song!


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## Hoosier205 (Sep 3, 2007)

I wouldn't even know these channels existed if I didn't hear about them here.


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## ub1934 (Dec 30, 2005)

And they still will not move the 119 chs so that the 3 lnb slimline dish people can receive them , and yes XM does sound much better


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## bidger (Nov 19, 2005)

Impala1ss said:


> Since the changeover to Sonic Tap I have been very disappointed in the quality of the sound, and the quality of the programming, especially when compared to the prior XM channels.


Uh...yeah, that pretty much sums it up for me. Matter of fact I'll go so far as to say they really don't exist as far as I'm concerned. Which is why I've moved on to Internet Radio on my Squeezebox Duet. My suggestion would be start researching options since it's going to be awhile before DirecTV moves on to anything else, if they ever do.


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## ffemtreed (Jan 30, 2008)

ub1934 said:


> And they still will not move the 119 chs so that the 3 lnb slimline dish people can receive them , and yes XM does sound much better


YES YES YES!!!!! I am mad about this as well. I thought when D12 came online they would move them but I am guessing it will never happen now.

I called and asked if they would come reinstall my 5lnb but they wouldn't. They insisted I only needed a 3lnb in my area to get all the channels. They said those music channels are for legacy equipment and only provided as a curtusy.


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## infounlim (Mar 5, 2009)

ub1934 said:


> And they still will not move the 119 chs so that the 3 lnb slimline dish people can receive them , and yes XM does sound much better


^ second this


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## Impala1ss (Jul 22, 2007)

ub1934 said:


> And they still will not move the 119 chs so that the 3 lnb slimline dish people can receive them , and yes XM does sound much better


Don't know what you mean by this. I have the new 3 lnb slimline dish and get all the channels.


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## wilbur_the_goose (Aug 16, 2006)

I just had an H24 put upstairs in my bedroom, and I've been listening to Sonic Tap for a week now as I get ready for work.

Well, to be blunt, Sonic Tap stinks like a dead skunk. It's beyond horrible, and it's 4th rate programming on what's supposed to be the #1 TV provider, DirecTV.


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## Hoosier205 (Sep 3, 2007)

Just turn on the radio...


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## Phroz (Jul 3, 2006)

SonicTap is horrible. The sound quality is dreadful and the song selection is poor. I hope they're paying DirecTV to carry this garbage...

Honestly, even Music Choice is a hundred times better than this.


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## infounlim (Mar 5, 2009)

Impala1ss said:


> Don't know what you mean by this. I have the new 3 lnb slimline dish and get all the channels.


Unless something has recently changed these are all on 119 and you need an SL-5 to receive them, even if you pay for them as part of your programming package.

807-Rat Pack (50's music)
815-Holidays (assume its just during xmas time)
824-groove lounge
852-jazz
853-Metro Blend
855-Great Standards
861-Pump 
865-Piano
870-Fiesta
873-Mexican
876-Mariachi
877-Carnival Brasil
880-Family Favorites (60's-today soft rock music)
881-Italian
882-Italian Contemporary
883-Irish
884-Tranquality


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## wilbur_the_goose (Aug 16, 2006)

That'd be correct. I just realized that switching to MRV caused me to lose these channels due to the SWIM.

Oh well, no loss. Those channels stink too.


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## MikeW (May 16, 2002)

Hoosier205 said:


> Just turn on the radio...


Point taken....twice in the same thread. Thanks, but there are some of us who realize that our $120+ bill includes the cost of the music channels. We have patiently waited for the changeover to smooth out and give us either equal to or better than XM and it hasn't panned out that way. Enjoy your local radio stations with 20-30% of the air-time devoted to commercials. Others will continue to put DirecTV's feet to the fire and hope that someday they realize Sonic Tap is not even close to where it needs to be.


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## PokerJoker (Apr 12, 2008)

Phroz said:


> SonicTap is horrible. The sound quality is dreadful and the song selection is poor. I hope they're paying DirecTV to carry this garbage...
> 
> Honestly, even Music Choice is a hundred times better than this.


+100 on that. Most of their channels are garbage, and the sound quality is worse than the cheesiest low-rate MP3. No highs, no bass, humongous compression.

To be fair, there are one or two exceptions. Like, for some reason, the New Age channel is much better than their usual quality. It sounds about like a 48k Web radio station.

Most of the rest are unlistenable. When I get a chance to stick an XM antenna outdoors (I'm in a metal building, so it won't work inside), I'm getting rid of Sonic Crap for good.


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## hasan (Sep 22, 2006)

wilbur_the_goose said:


> I just had an H24 put upstairs in my bedroom, and I've been listening to Sonic Tap for a week now as I get ready for work.
> 
> Well, to be blunt, Sonic Tap stinks like a dead skunk. It's beyond horrible, and it's 4th rate programming on what's supposed to be the #1 TV provider, DirecTV.


It's 4th rate radio programming on the #1 *TV* provider. Music is just an *afterthought* for D* (stating the obvious). If music were important to me, I'd find another source.


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## hasan (Sep 22, 2006)

MikeW said:


> Point taken....twice in the same thread. Thanks, but there are some of us who realize that our $120+ bill includes the cost of the music channels. We have patiently waited for the changeover to smooth out and give us either equal to or better than XM and it hasn't panned out that way. Enjoy your local radio stations with 20-30% of the air-time devoted to commercials. Others will continue to put DirecTV's feet to the fire and hope that someday they realize Sonic Tap is not even close to where it needs to be.


I don't see it happening. There are other good sources for music that D* has no intention of competing with. I'd like to see them drop music altogether (which probably wouldn't even recover enough bandwidth to sneeze at), and stick to what their main mission is.

Basically, the music service stinks and is unlikely to get any better. There is no significant demand, there isn't much (if any) money in it for them, and the other alternatives are so much better, D* would have a tough time catching up, even if they wanted to, and it's quite obvious that they don't.

The "get a radio" comment was, to me, not literal, but making the same point. The D* sat boxes are very poor swiss army knives. Media share is a kludge compared to dedicated media server boxes.

We now have two examples of auxiliary programming efforts that are grossly inferior to their stand-alone competitors': music and media share.

Hoosier is correct: look elsewhere if you want satisfactory results. It's not going to happen with D*. The old advice is still the best advice: Never try to teach a pig to sing, it will only frustrate you, and irritate the pig.


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## joed32 (Jul 27, 2006)

I have a Netflix account and got a Roku box for streaming. As a nice side benefit they have Pandora commercial free. Music that I want to hear and if they play something you don't like you can give it a thumbs down and it will never play again.


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## adamson (Nov 9, 2007)

Pandora is also my answer to Sonic. The current situation with the music channels and Sonic itself needs to be fixed, and better yet go back to Music Choice! Sonic cheapins Directv as a quality provider. What exactly were you thinking Directv going to Sonic??


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## Impala1ss (Jul 22, 2007)

infounlim said:


> Unless something has recently changed these are all on 119 and you need an SL-5 to receive them, even if you pay for them as part of your programming package.
> 
> 807-Rat Pack (50's music)
> 815-Holidays (assume its just during xmas time)
> ...


Sorry. Didn't know what you meant by channels. Regardless, more sh!tty channels is not "better."


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## Tom Servo (Mar 7, 2007)

PokerJoker said:


> +100 on that. Most of their channels are garbage, and the sound quality is worse than the cheesiest low-rate MP3. No highs, no bass, humongous compression.
> 
> To be fair, there are one or two exceptions. Like, for some reason, the New Age channel is much better than their usual quality. It sounds about like a 48k Web radio station.
> 
> Most of the rest are unlistenable. When I get a chance to stick an XM antenna outdoors (I'm in a metal building, so it won't work inside), I'm getting rid of Sonic Crap for good.


I'll agree that the channels are all bit starved and sound pretty poor in that sense (I think they're also only running at 32 kHz instead of the standard 44.1 kHz) but they pulled the compressors off all the channels I listen to, like classic rock, classic hit and the 60's channel.

Programming is a whole nother kettle of fish. Some of the channels seem to do OK, but some are very repetitive.

It's still better than the blathering DJ's on XM. Ever since Sirius took them over they went waaaay downhill. Around the time Sonic Tap debuted I ditched my XM sub because it was so piss poor.


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## wilbur_the_goose (Aug 16, 2006)

Friends - D* just doesn't care about this issue - it's obvious. Every time I've called, I've been given the usual script about great programming and "we're sorry - but".

Somebody in their Finance department must have made the decision solely on the basis of cutting costs. 

This is like BMW putting an AM-only radio in their 7-series cars. Ughh!


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## dcowboy7 (May 23, 2008)

If they dont care about it then why put the channels on at all.


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## max1 (Aug 12, 2005)

I have noticed this too on some of the channels. I think i am done with Sonic. With my I phone I listen to cbsradio and I heart radio and never hear a commercial so think I will just use that. I have a nice portable speaker with I phone and sounds great. I work for D I will see if i can find some info about Sonic allthough I have never had anybody call and complain in 6 months abt soinic. Have a great last summer weekend. Max.


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## mitchflorida (May 18, 2009)

If you really care about music quality and selection, I would recommend you subscribe to Pandora.com instead. It is easy to play it on your music system by using a $59 Roku box or Blu-Ray dvd receiver . . Of course you can play it on your PC for free. They stream at 192Kbps and you program the channels the way you want.


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## ThomasM (Jul 20, 2007)

Grumble grumble grumble....from all the DirecTV subscribers _too cheap to buy an XM or Sirius radio and subscribe._

I happen to LIKE DMX..a lot. I enjoyed it and even paid an extra $5 a month for the required box to get it when I had cable TV in the 90's.

I still have XM subscriptions since I renewed for 2 years to get the old price before DirecTV switched to DMX. (They won't be renewed) Now, when comparing the quality of my XM radio and my DirecTV receiver tuned to a DMX (Sonic Tap) channel both hooked up to my stereo there is no comparison. The XM signal is AWFUL, is compressed up the you-know-what, never seems to stop blabbing between songs and has almost no stereo separation.

Someone grumbled because DMX has ONLY 1,000 selections on a particular channel??? Most FM stations are lucky to have 300 selections!! And you think XM/Sirius has that many songs on each channel? Well, maybe XM did before Mel ruined it after the merger...


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## bidger (Nov 19, 2005)

ThomasM said:


> Grumble grumble grumble....from all the DirecTV subscribers _too cheap to buy an XM or Sirius radio and subscribe._


Smack talk from someone too cheap to upgrade to HD.

Why the $#%^ would I need satellite radio when I'm not a Howard Stern fan or long distance trucker?

Long story short, I recall you assuring the board that we'd all be quite happy with the migration from X-M to Sonic Tap for DirecTV's audio channels. Nostradamus you ain't.


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## Tom Servo (Mar 7, 2007)

ThomasM said:


> The XM signal is AWFUL, is compressed up the you-know-what, never seems to stop blabbing between songs and has almost no stereo separation.
> 
> Someone grumbled because DMX has ONLY 1,000 selections on a particular channel??? Most FM stations are lucky to have 300 selections!! And you think XM/Sirius has that many songs on each channel? Well, maybe XM did before Mel ruined it after the merger...


Ain't that the truth_!_

I do most of my music listening with headphones at home, probably even moreso than any car listening, so sound quality is important. The sound off the XM and Sirius birds was just unacceptable. So after Mel tore out all the good stuff from XM I let my subs slide, too.

The sound quality on DirecTV, even when they had XM, has never been as good as it should have been. I think going back to the Music Choice days it's been a little bit-starved and the sample rate has been only 32 kHz.

The difference _may_ be that from MC and XM, they were sending DirecTV uncompressed audio, so it was only being encoded/decoded once, but I betcha money SonicTap stores all their music in PAC or MP3 format, and what we're hearing is the cascading codec effect.

Unfortunately that's not a problem that's easily solved by the ST people, who would probably be unwilling to re-encode all their music in a lossless format just for this one venture with DirecTV.



bidger said:


> Why the $#%^ would I need satellite radio when I'm not a Howard Stern fan or long distance trucker?


Come on down to my neck of Mississippi and you'll see why it's of benefit for at least some of us.  I got twenty gospel stations, twenty mono country stations, one oldies station and a statewide network all carrying the same public radio. That's about it_!_ Before Uncle Mel put all the talent and programmers on the chopping block, many of the XM channels had little or not chatter and played some really good blocks of music. If not for his intervention I'd probably still be a subscriber. And I'm not a Hoo-hoo fan or trucker, either.

Everything I can get on the radio now comes off a satellite, with voice-tracked people, so why not just eliminate the commercials and enjoy Sonic Tap? I tape blocks of programming with my mp3 player (what&#8230; your iPod doesn't record? How odd.) And then I have 8 hours at a time of programmed, themed music, _sans_ jocks and _sans _commercials. Even with the crap sound quality and technical troubles it still beats our "local" stations by a country mile.


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## Davenlr (Sep 16, 2006)

bidger said:


> Why the $#%^ would I need satellite radio when I'm not a Howard Stern fan or long distance trucker?


I drive all over the state for work, and its very convenient not having to retune the radio and search for stations every hour or two while driving. It does have its benefits, and in my work van, stereo separation isnt that big a deal to me. For home use, I use XM online, and it doesnt sound bad. I run a decompressor on my Denon for XM and FM broadcasts, and that helps quite a bit with the compression. Stereo separation isnt that great, but I have CD's if I want high quality.


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## bidger (Nov 19, 2005)

Davenlr said:


> I drive all over the state for work...


Which would be similar to a long haul trucker and I can understand the benefit of satellite radio there. My commute is ~ 30 mins. total.


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## Davenlr (Sep 16, 2006)

Have you tried HD Radio? The ones we have in our town have really decent audio quality, and several are commercial free.


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## Tom Servo (Mar 7, 2007)

Davenlr said:


> Have you tried HD Radio? The ones we have in our town have really decent audio quality, and several are commercial free.


I doubt there's much on in Elmira. HD is mostly in the bigger cities. I had a lot of reception troubles on most of the HD stations in Little Rock when I came through there last.

Where I live in rural Mississippi the only HD is NPR, main channel's news/classical and the subchannel is 24 hrs classical and local music. And of the three NPR stations that serve my town, none really give me a good lock because I'm 30-60 miles from the transmitters.


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## wilbur_the_goose (Aug 16, 2006)

Thomas M - I subscribe to XM in both my cars.

I just wanted some streaming music at home through my TV (not PC).


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## bidger (Nov 19, 2005)

Davenlr said:


> Have you tried HD Radio? The ones we have in our town have really decent audio quality, and several are commercial free.





Tom Servo said:


> I doubt there's much on in Elmira.


You be right, Tommygun. A couple of NPR feeds and a Modern Country station. Like I said before, Internet Radio suits me fine. The original intent of this thread is that Sonic Tap has proven a less-than-adequate replacement for X-M on DirecTV for quite a few of us, faulty compression scheme or not.


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## RadioOKC (Sep 20, 2010)

I have never really counted on the audio quality being that great for XM (which it was not) and Sonic Tap from Directv. I think with music added to the platform it's made to be tv quality. I'm a hi-fi buff myself so it is fustrating so I don't use it. My wife listens to some of the instrumental music when doing yoga or meditation and she will turn on the kids music during the day for little ones during playtime.

What would be cool is if DirecTV had an app available for something like RadioTime or Loud City. I know that I have listeners of my station that tune
in on their Vizio TV's and Blu Rays that are connected to the web and they love it. That would give you the option to listen to local radio, local HD Radio and web based stations as well. It would really be nice to have that option on the HD-DVR. Just a thought.

I'm glad I discovered this forum. It helped me with my old Samsung Tivo and I discovered other cool info as well.

Chris
RadioOKC


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## bjamin82 (Sep 4, 2007)

sonic what? just get a new blu ray or tv... and get pandora...


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## ThomasM (Jul 20, 2007)

bidger said:


> Smack talk from someone too cheap to upgrade to HD.


I'm not "too cheap". I'm retired living on a (very small) fixed income and HD is a luxury just like XM. Thus, they are NOT in my budget. Maybe DirecTV won't be in my budget when my commitment ends in December either and I'll re-learn how to live with over-the-air TV. But it will be in HD-for FREE.


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## ThomasM (Jul 20, 2007)

Tom Servo said:


> Ain't that the truth_!_
> 
> but I betcha money SonicTap stores all their music in PAC or MP3 format, and what we're hearing is the cascading codec effect.
> 
> Unfortunately that's not a problem that's easily solved by the ST people, who would probably be unwilling to re-encode all their music in a lossless format just for this one venture with DirecTV.


That's true. I read an article from DMX saying their music is stored in 320kHz MP3 format on their servers. When I had DMX in the nineties, each channel was fed by two Sony 300-disc CD "jukeboxes" and it sure sounded great!!

Music lovers should demonstrate against the Motion Picture Engineering Group (MPEG) for their contribution to degrading the quality of music playback!! 

PS: DMX = Sonic Tap for those who don't know.


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## ThomasM (Jul 20, 2007)

wilbur_the_goose said:


> Thomas M - I subscribe to XM in both my cars.
> 
> I just wanted some streaming music at home through my TV (not PC).


I'm waiting to see what XM comes up in the deal department when I don't renew next March as I would consider keeping it in the car (factory installed GM/Delphi radio). While I love Sonic Tap (DMX) at home, reverting to FM in the car would be a definite negative.


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## bidger (Nov 19, 2005)

ThomasM said:


> I'm not "too cheap". I'm retired living on a (very small) fixed income and HD is a luxury just like XM. Thus, they are NOT in my budget. Maybe DirecTV won't be in my budget when my commitment ends in December either and I'll re-learn how to live with over-the-air TV. But it will be in HD-for FREE.


Since that's the case, don't you think it's a bit judgmental for someone in that situation to be calling out others on alleged "frugality"?


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## ThomasM (Jul 20, 2007)

bidger said:


> Since that's the case, don't you think it's a bit judgmental for someone in that situation to be calling out others on alleged "frugality"?


Not really since the XM/Sirius service is available even though it isn't offered anymore AT NO EXTRA CHARGE on DirecTV.

If there was no way to get a service eliminated by DirecTV without switching satellite TV providers that would be a legitimate gripe. And sometimes that situation is addressed by DirecTV (note the VERSUS channel uproar).

But you can get XM/Sirius for $12.95 a month if you really miss it which is about the cost of one premium channel. Or you can switch to DISH Network which still offers it on their better packages.


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## wilbur_the_goose (Aug 16, 2006)

I just purchased a Sony BD player that plays Pandora flawlessly. Problem solved for me.


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## xmguy (Mar 27, 2008)

I am a BIT bias towards XM. I love it. Granted the talk can get a bit annoying. But it's nothing like FM Radio. I just don't care for DMX. Each their own. XM DOES have MORE stereo separation than previously too. I have an XMp3 and noticed it just today in fact.


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## Tom Servo (Mar 7, 2007)

ThomasM said:


> I'm waiting to see what XM comes up in the deal department when I don't renew next March as I would consider keeping it in the car (factory installed GM/Delphi radio). While I love Sonic Tap (DMX) at home, reverting to FM in the car would be a definite negative.


Like I've said before, when the channels are running in mono or all messed up I have taken the opportunity to record big 8 hour chunks for listening in the car. That's been my solution to no longer having XM.

With a sufficient bitrate setting the sound quality is no worse than off the box. So, not great, but no worse than our local crap radio stations. We have one that sounds really fantastic with an oldies format and the rest sound like they're piping in this Sonic Tap, all warbly and gurgly.


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## wilbur_the_goose (Aug 16, 2006)

I wonder if anybody at D* other than 1st level CSRs knows how bad Sonic Tap is? I have this strange feeling that our e-mails and phone mails are being sent to the CSR version of "/dev/null" (the electronic garbage can).


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## bjamin82 (Sep 4, 2007)

wilbur_the_goose said:


> I just purchased a Sony BD player that plays Pandora flawlessly. Problem solved for me.


Pandora is definitely the way to go!


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## Joe C (Mar 3, 2005)

If Directv is going to make the effort to provide music channels those channels should have acceptable sound quality when heard through an AV reciever. Stupid statements that just defend Directv like get an ipod or stream Pandora don't address the problem. I fail to see why every other major TV provider can do this and not Directv.


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## Impala1ss (Jul 22, 2007)

When I started this thread my main concern was the poor quality of PROGRAMMING; the rotten song choices. Doesn't anyone care about the programming issue?


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## mitchflorida (May 18, 2009)

I actually like the programming on SonicTap. Just wish the sound quality were better. I think it also depends on which channels you are listening to.


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## ffemtreed (Jan 30, 2008)

Impala1ss said:


> When I started this thread my main concern was the poor quality of PROGRAMMING; the rotten song choices. Doesn't anyone care about the programming issue?


who doesn;t like listing to the same 10 songs over and over again!


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## Tom Servo (Mar 7, 2007)

Impala1ss said:


> When I started this thread my main concern was the poor quality of PROGRAMMING; the rotten song choices. Doesn't anyone care about the programming issue?


Like Sirius XM, channel programming is dependent on who programs it.

As far as I can see you only complained about the bluegrass channel. Unfortunately it's not a very popular form of music so there are likely to be very few complaints about it from people such as yourself with great knowledge of the format.

I like bluegrass but not enough to really know the core artists or who's doing what in the now.

I will agree that the classic rock channels, in addition to being technically decrepit (and I assure everyone it's on DirecTV's end) do lack diversity. The 60's channel, though, is a pretty decent channel. Not too obscure, but not too repetitive either.


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## wilbur_the_goose (Aug 16, 2006)

Oh yeah - Sonic Tap programming is a very, very bad joke. Only time I've ever heard Madonna categorized as a "singer songwriter".


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## MaxFan (Jul 28, 2009)

Sorry did not mean to double post!


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## MaxFan (Jul 28, 2009)

The Sonic Tap sounds much better to me now. I guess I am in the minority here? Does anyone else think its better sounding now??


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## ThomasM (Jul 20, 2007)

MaxFan said:


> The Sonic Tap sounds much better to me now. I guess I am in the minority here? Does anyone else think its better sounding now??


YES. I think the music channels on DirecTV (Sonic Tap/DMX) are FAR SUPERIOR to Sirius/XM in both sound quality and programming.

I have 3 Sirius/XM receivers and when my current subscription expires next March NONE of them will be renewed. I listen exclusively to Sonic Tap on DirecTV now at home and even reactivated one of my old Hughes receivers in my computer room just to listen to Sonic Tap!

Unfortunately, I still put up with XM in the car and am constantly reminded how bad it is with it's lack of stereo separation, poor ultra-compressed audio quality, and motormouth DJ's constantly interrupting the music.


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## skatingrocker17 (Jun 24, 2010)

dcowboy7 said:


> If they dont care about it then why put the channels on at all.


So they can say they have it.


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## gfrang (Aug 30, 2007)

I stopped listening to sonic crap a long time ago and every once in a wile i give it a re listen.My next step is to uncheck all of the channels so i don't waste anymore time trying to figure out what is wrong.


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## ub1934 (Dec 30, 2005)

ThomasM said:


> YES. I think the music channels on DirecTV (Sonic Tap/DMX) are FAR SUPERIOR to Sirius/XM in both sound quality and programming.
> 
> I have 3 Sirius/XM receivers and when my current subscription expires next March NONE of them will be renewed. I listen exclusively to Sonic Tap on DirecTV now at home and even reactivated one of my old Hughes receivers in my computer room just to listen to Sonic Tap!
> 
> Unfortunately, I still put up with XM in the car and am constantly reminded how bad it is with it's lack of stereo separation, poor ultra-compressed audio quality, and motormouth DJ's constantly interrupting the music.


Think its time for you to have your hearing tested ,


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## EVAC41 (Jun 27, 2006)

You guys are right. The sound quality is not good.. I wish XM would return. I listened to it more when XM was on there.

Now I just stream Pandora thru my Sony blueray player or thru my Ipod Touch. But sometimes it stops when I play it thru my Ipod (its on wireless and my Blueray player is on wired)


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## bflora (Nov 6, 2007)

Channel 833 alternates between stereo and mono, even changing during a song. There seems to be no pattern to the switches and it is definitely not my system as I can change to another Sonic Tap channel when 833 goes mono and the other channel will be stereo. When I immediately change back to 833, it's still in mono.


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## Carroll A (Dec 6, 2004)

I am still pretty new to D* so I can't give my thoughts on XM being on D*, but coming from E* which had Sirius the SonicTap audio is no where near what the audio was like from E*. As for the channels itself some audio adjustments really need to be made. When you listen to Love Songs it sounds like the EQ is way out of wack with no midrange or higher end audio... On the plus side I really love the 60's thru 90's decade channels which have a much deeper playlist then what Sirius has. If Sirius would open their playlist up like what SonicTap has with it's channels they would be kickass... CC


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## Hoosier205 (Sep 3, 2007)

Just turn on the radio instead.


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## dcowboy7 (May 23, 2008)

Hoosier205 said:


> Just turn on the radio instead.


We've been thru this....there is no country station in NY.


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## Paul Secic (Dec 16, 2003)

Impala1ss said:


> Since the changeover to Sonic Tap I have been very disappointed in the quality of the sound, and the quality of the programming, especially when compared to the prior XM channels.
> 
> The quality is probably DirecTV's fault through whatever they are doing to the original signal.
> 
> ...


I'm glad I have Dish. They have Sirius/XM and Musak. More choices with them.


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## Curtis0620 (Apr 22, 2002)

Paul Secic said:


> I'm glad I have Dish. They have Sirius/XM and Musak. More choices with them.


Unless you want to watch TV.


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## mdavej (Jan 31, 2007)

Curtis0620 said:


> Unless you want to watch TV.


Yeah, Dish subs have to put up with junk like AMC HD, BBCA HD, G4 HD, TCM HD, E! HD, HLN HD, etc., etc., while you guy are enjoying all that in glorious D* SD.


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## MysteryMan (May 17, 2010)

mdavej said:


> Yeah, Dish subs have to put up with junk like AMC HD, BBCA HD, G4 HD, TCM HD, E! HD, HLN HD, etc., etc., while you guy are enjoying all that in glorious D* SD.


And need you be reminded of how well DISH is negotiating with FOX? It's like watching a one legged man in a ass kicking contest!


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## Curtis0620 (Apr 22, 2002)

mdavej said:


> Yeah, Dish subs have to put up with junk like AMC HD, BBCA HD, G4 HD, TCM HD, E! HD, HLN HD, etc., etc., while you guy are enjoying all that in glorious D* SD.


Or Disney HD, ESPNNEWS HD, ESPNU HD, FX HD, Nat GEO HD, FSN HD, etc.


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## mdavej (Jan 31, 2007)

Curtis0620 said:


> Or Disney HD, ESPNNEWS HD, ESPNU HD, FX HD, Nat GEO HD, FSN HD, etc.


Yawn.


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## Curtis0620 (Apr 22, 2002)

mdavej said:


> Yawn.


that explains why you like dish.:lol::lol::lol:


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## mdavej (Jan 31, 2007)

MysteryMan said:


> And need you be reminded of how well DISH is negotiating with FOX? It's like watching a one legged man in a ass kicking contest!


What goes around comes around. Wait until Fox asks D* for several hundred million dollars more. I've got AMC and BBCA HD. I could care less about Fox.


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## Hoosier205 (Sep 3, 2007)

mdavej said:


> What goes around comes around. Wait until Fox asks D* for several hundred million dollars more.


Already taken care of. Better get back to your HD-Lite.


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## mdavej (Jan 31, 2007)

Curtis0620 said:


> that explains why you like dish.:lol::lol::lol:


Touche.

Getting back OT, can someone explain why D* purposely destroys the sound quality of Sonic Tap? Every time I report a problem Sonic Tap swears their feed is perfect, and the problem is on D*'s end. The only response I ever get from D* is some meaningless form letter that has nothing to do with my issue. Does bit starving the audio channels or broadcasting in mono save them any money?

(BTW, I'm a long time D* sub who recently switched to Dish and couldn't be happier with that move for the HD channels I gained, the superior SD PQ and superior music channels. I have yet to see any HD-Lite. HD-Net test patterns look exactly the same as they do on D*. OTA also looks the same as the Dish feed. In any case, I'd still like D* music offerings to improve since many of my family members have D* and are still suffering through Sonic Crap).


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## wilbur_the_goose (Aug 16, 2006)

mdavej,
I have no real info - the following is just a guess.

But I'm betting the poor audio is Sonic Tap's fault. XM was so much better. MC was good too.

Sonic Tap sells to stores and restaurants. No critical listening going on there. Mono, cheap speakers.

D* has nothing to gain by bitstarving. It's all ST's fault, IMO.


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## Tom Servo (Mar 7, 2007)

bflora said:


> Channel 833 alternates between stereo and mono, even changing during a song. There seems to be no pattern to the switches and it is definitely not my system as I can change to another Sonic Tap channel when 833 goes mono and the other channel will be stereo. When I immediately change back to 833, it's still in mono.


I've been complaining off and on about that since the XM days. Channel 833 was previously XM's Classic Vinyl channel and it did the same thing back then. At least with this issue, it's not Sonic Tap's fault.



Carroll A said:


> On the plus side I really love the 60's thru 90's decade channels which have a much deeper playlist then what Sirius has. If Sirius would open their playlist up like what SonicTap has with it's channels they would be kickass... CC


Pre-merger XM's decades channels sounded exactly as you described: deep and wide with lots of forgotten favorites.  Sirius came in and FM-ified them and that's when I unsubbed.



mdavej said:


> Getting back OT, can someone explain why D* purposely destroys the sound quality of Sonic Tap? Every time I report a problem Sonic Tap swears their feed is perfect, and the problem is on D*'s end. The only response I ever get from D* is some meaningless form letter that has nothing to do with my issue. Does bit starving the audio channels or broadcasting in mono save them any money?


My theory (and it is just only a theory) is that the "perfect" feed Sonic Tap swears they have is actually already compressed audio. XM fed uncompressed audio directly to DirecTV from what I have gathered. XM also stored their music uncompressed in their music system.

It is very possible that Sonic Tap stores their music in a lossy format like mp3 on hard disk, then re-compresses it for feeding to DirecTV and anyone else who wants it.

DirecTV _may_ then be re-compressing the audio for a third time.

Running even a high bitrate audio file through multiple de/re-compressions will make it sound horrible, and that could be what's happening here.


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## Paul Secic (Dec 16, 2003)

EVAC41 said:


> You guys are right. The sound quality is not good.. I wish XM would return. I listened to it more when XM was on there.
> 
> Now I just stream Pandora thru my Sony blueray player or thru my Ipod Touch. But sometimes it stops when I play it thru my Ipod (its on wireless and my Blueray player is on wired)


Well Musak already has Christmas music on Dish. I found it last night.


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## gibson.guitarman (Mar 19, 2007)

mdavej said:


> Getting back OT, can someone explain why D* purposely destroys the sound quality of Sonic Tap? Every time I report a problem Sonic Tap swears their feed is perfect, and the problem is on D*'s end.QUOTE]
> 
> I'm guessing that if someone wants to copy the music, D* worsens it so subscribers will copy their music elsewhere, keeping them on the media industry's good side. And, they can still claim to have "music" channels, and not lose an appreciable number of subscribers to poor audio anyway. They won't gain any subs by having better audio on their music channels, so it is safer to not have top shelf audio. It wouldn't gain them anything to admit this, either. It does have its positive side - I listen to it on my TV with a sleep timer to go to sleep by, it's fine for that. Listening to the '60s music, it reminds me of the radio I had back then.


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## marker101 (Nov 6, 2007)

DMX does NOT compress its audio on the DBS 100+ channel service. It is fed as Dolby Digital AC3 sampled at 44.1k. Guarantee that if you had the DMX DBS service it would be 100% pristine quality and an A/B comparison would find that the DBS feed sounds nothing like the junk that DirecTV is sending the same programming out as.


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## Tom Servo (Mar 7, 2007)

marker101 said:


> DMX does NOT compress its audio on the DBS 100+ channel service. It is fed as Dolby Digital AC3 sampled at 44.1k. Guarantee that if you had the DMX DBS service it would be 100% pristine quality and an A/B comparison would find that the DBS feed sounds nothing like the junk that DirecTV is sending the same programming out as.


AC-3 _is_ a lossy compression scheme so there's nothing pristine about it when it's delivered in that format.

Although I'm sure it sounds better than what we hear through DirecTV due to cascading codecs.


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## joe diamond (Feb 28, 2007)

Alright,

So you get out of the elevator and complain to your dentist that his office MUZAK sucks. Then you ask why he can't come up with cool background music like in the elevator.

Those channels are there for advertisement purposes only. It is part of the hundreds of channels you get from Directv. It is the ability to state a number in ad copy that drives the presence of the prerecorded channels.

Joe


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## Paul Secic (Dec 16, 2003)

marker101 said:


> DMX does NOT compress its audio on the DBS 100+ channel service. It is fed as Dolby Digital AC3 sampled at 44.1k. Guarantee that if you had the DMX DBS service it would be 100% pristine quality and an A/B comparison would find that the DBS feed sounds nothing like the junk that DirecTV is sending the same programming out as.


U-verse dropped it's Follow music from MTV. When I had it they had songs & artists I never heard of.


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

joe diamond said:


> So you get out of the elevator and complain to your dentist that his office MUZAK sucks.


MUZAK feeds are actually pretty clean. DISH Network uses several of them as part of their music channel offering.

DIRECTV insults by delivering decidedly deficient audio quality to go along with a surprisingly unimaginative playlist.


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## E91 (Oct 7, 2008)

MikeW said:


> Point taken....twice in the same thread. Thanks, but there are some of us who realize that our $120+ bill includes the cost of the music channels. We have patiently waited for the changeover to smooth out and give us either equal to or better than XM and it hasn't panned out that way. Enjoy your local radio stations with 20-30% of the air-time devoted to commercials. Others will continue to put DirecTV's feet to the fire and hope that someday they realize Sonic Tap is not even close to where it needs to be.


+1. I don't see any reason to apologize for complaining about a lousy product. If part of the reason you pay for D* is to get decent music channels (and, btw, D* does advertise music channels in their promotional literature), its perfectly reasonable to me to expect a decent service.

I don't personally use the music channels all that much but its a huge down step from a few years back (when I was last a D* guy) and we had XM with all those neat channels.

If D* is not going to provide decent music offerings, they should just drop the pretense and get rid of them altogether.


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## E91 (Oct 7, 2008)

Hoosier205 said:


> Just turn on the radio instead.


Sure. And, you can just use rabbit ears to watch TV.


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## Paul Secic (Dec 16, 2003)

Curtis0620 said:


> Or Disney HD, ESPNNEWS HD, ESPNU HD, FX HD, Nat GEO HD, FSN HD, etc.


Dish tangos betteer.. :lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:


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## somguy (Oct 2, 2006)

SonicTap
Enjoy holiday music this season. Nov 22 - Dec 25 on channel 810. 100% commercial free music.

Source: www.sonictap.com


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## joe diamond (Feb 28, 2007)

harsh said:


> MUZAK feeds are actually pretty clean. DISH Network uses several of them as part of their music channel offering.
> 
> DIRECTV insults by delivering decidedly deficient audio quality to go along with a surprisingly unimaginative playlist.


You know, you are right.

I was in a saloon awhile ago and the cool sound was MUZAK. It was pretty good and delivered by their equipment. The owner thought it was a little expensive but well serviced and sounded good. I guess I was going to an earlier time of department store tape loops with scratches and gaps.

The Directv genre and the play lists are mostly background music.

Sorry MUZAK,

Joe


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## Mesaman (Nov 26, 2010)

Am a new DTV customer and switched from COX which featured Music Choice...not fabulous, but the "soundscapes" channel at least featured artists like Michael Roach, Patrick O'hearn, David Helping and many other ambient artists...Is there any way to get better programming or separate channel for this as opposed to the Windham Hill style offerings? there's some nice Carlos Nakai flute pieces but nothing like Hearts of Space or the Deep Tracks another poster mentioned from XM that was previous...Some of us like very out there ambient pieces, especially in early mornings or late nights...


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## djrobx (Jan 27, 2009)

Like Tom Servo, I record 6 hour chunks of DirecTV's music channels for listening in the car. I have a lifetime Sirius subscription, so this has nothing to do with being cheap.

Sirius/XM has *atrocious* sound quality from their own satellite. Sirius/XM through DirecTV was significantly better. That was what got me started on doing the recordings. While better, it was not great. Pulling samples into a frequency analyzer, it was clearly limited to 32khz. There were also certain odd distortions like clicking and popping.

Then we had the switch to SonicTap. At first there were horrible problems with dynamic range compression. After a few months they seem to have gotten it under control. The sound quality is now pretty similar to what it was with XM. Still not great, still better than XM off their satellite.

I generally have found the music programming quality to be mediocre to acceptable. Not as good as XM was. But I do like the lack of chatter.

It can be much worse. You should hear URGE on U-verse. Terrible sound quality, terrible programming.


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## Paul Secic (Dec 16, 2003)

joe diamond said:


> Alright,
> 
> So you get out of the elevator and complain to your dentist that his office MUZAK sucks. Then you ask why he can't come up with cool background music like in the elevator.
> 
> ...


My dentist has two digital TVS in each dental stalls hooked up to DirecTV. He must have 20 TVS. Most of them are tuned to CNN or HGTV. All of the receivers are thin.


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