Personally, I can tell the difference, but I don’t care in the car.
First, inside a car is hardly an optimal place to be a picky audiophille. Too many outside noises and too much interior sound dampening can be dangerous. Plus, I already have to use FM modulation in my car (thankfully inline rather then over the air transmission, but its still FM modulation), so sound quality will never be great. I’m already used to the compromises necessary to listen to music in a vehicle, so the sound quality of satellite isn’t an issue.
nKoan has a good point. Heck, where I grew up we never got the most stellar radio reception as it is, and my car makes so much noise that the quality isn’t really that noticeable. I do have a direct aux input with my sirius though, as well as my Ipod … makes it so much nicer to be able to control either of them from my receiver’s remote.
So, you are assuming I’ve never heard a CD before? That I went straight to compression?
And yeah, I can tell the difference between HD and SD. It’s pretty clear to me, and I own an SD, not an HDTV. But when I go to the store, I can tell which one I am looking at.
BTW, I heard Queen’s Flash Gordon theme yesterday on Sirius! Never heard that on the radio.
That’s a good point, nKoan. On my computer, I can tell the difference between mp3s and straight CD, but I’m using headphones and little background noise.
BTW, which station did you like? I can tell you if there are others you might like once you hear them more often.
I liked Boombox (I think, 34) the most. Though, I’m not always in the mood for that type of music. Occasionally, Left of Center will play a song I like though it borders on a little too emo/indie most of the time for my tastes. And there were a few other rock stations (who’s names escape me) that I ocassionally liked. The hip-hop stations, though, left me wanting, as I like more of the indie and underground style, as opposed to the ‘hits’ of any time period.
I’ve run across XM on airplanes and now on my DirecTV audio channels. They’ve killed any interest I had in the service. The Music Choice channels DTV had before were much better.
If anyone here lives in the Bay area, or used to in the 90s, one of my favorite radio people, Alex Bennett, has his own show on the Liberal talk channel (the channel # escapes me at the moment.) He used to have a morning show on Live 105, and his show on sirius (think 8-12 EST) is just as good, although more political of course.
And you can say fuck and shit on these stations also! No censored music ftw. :p
The superiority of satellite radio was made clear to me when I was driving a rental car while mine was in the shop. On a 20-minute drive, I heard exactly 1 full song while listening to a regular FM station. Abominable.
