# Inno vs DirecTV sound quality



## jmurray (May 17, 2002)

I just got a refurbished Inno1. I installed the home dock to my receiver and listened to it and it sounded terrible compared to the D* version. My D* receiver is connected with an optical connection to my receiver while the inno uses analog rca cables. (Onkyo 797 receiver)

Is it me or is the XM sound quality in general pretty poor. I listen to Squizz and Lucy almost exclusively. I know it's not CD quality and the over compression is a hot topic for discussion, but it sounds like listening to very poor quality mp3s.


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## machavez00 (Nov 2, 2006)

jmurray said:


> I just got a refurbished Inno1. I installed the home dock to my receiver and listened to it and it sounded terrible compared to the D* version. My D* receiver is connected with an optical connection to my receiver while the inno uses analog rca cables. (Onkyo 797 receiver)
> 
> Is it me or is the XM sound quality in general pretty poor. I listen to Squizz and Lucy almost exclusively. I know it's not CD quality and the over compression is a hot topic for discussion, but it sounds like listening to very poor quality mp3s.


I have a Delphi MyFi with a home dock and OEM XM in my Chevy Colorado. I do notice that the D* XM feeds sound better than the MyFi, but not as good as they do in my truck. The MyFi sound good when I use headphone though.


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## Steve Mehs (Mar 21, 2002)

Satellite radio is pretty compressed, some channels are worse then others. The DBS providers get their own feed from the SDARS providers, XM on DirecTV and Sirius on Dish will always sound better then XM or Sirius themselves. Squizz doesn’t sound the best on a home set up, but check out Watercolors and it sounds pretty good.


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## jmurray (May 17, 2002)

I kinda figured out that my Inno wasn't defective when I listened to XM on a buddy's car that has XM built into the factory head unit. It sounded like crap in there also. 

I was considering getting an XM or Sirius receiver for a whole house distibution setup, but now I'll probably get a used Directv receiver. It's going to sound better anyway...

Is there an efficient streaming lossless codec that these services could use if/when the merger takes place?


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## alv (Aug 13, 2002)

Anything with a digital output should sound better. The D/A convertors in the XM units are not that good.


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## SubaruWRX (Apr 20, 2007)

hmm this is new to me I thought it would sound the same on a home system or Direct TV.


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## JeffBostock (Feb 23, 2006)

jmurray said:


> I just got a refurbished Inno1. I installed the home dock to my receiver and listened to it and it sounded terrible compared to the D* version. My D* receiver is connected with an optical connection to my receiver while the inno uses analog rca cables. (Onkyo 797 receiver)
> 
> Is it me or is the XM sound quality in general pretty poor. I listen to Squizz and Lucy almost exclusively. I know it's not CD quality and the over compression is a hot topic for discussion, but it sounds like listening to very poor quality mp3s.


Yeah I think the sound is getting closer and closer to that of AM radio. When I first got my XM radio back like a year after they first lauched, it sounded much better than what it does now. Now I'm getting pissed paying $13/mo to listen to AM quality sound. The only thing that is keeping me a customer is that i do a lot of driving in my car with my job, and also the content. You can't listen to CNN or BBC World on FM or AM. I find myself listening to more talk programming than music because I can barely stand to listen to music with poor sound quality. I'll plug into my iPOD instead.


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