XM screwed up again...

Ray Minich · Post by **Ray Minich** » 22 May 2007 6:04 am

This mornin's e-mail...
"As many of you know, XM customers have experienced service outages or significantly degraded service
since Monday mid-morning, May 21."

Looks like they lost one of their birds to a software glitch. I wish they would stop cutting channel bandwidths in half. Pink Floyd's "Us and Them" track sounds like 2 channels of AM radio. Sibilance and no presence seem to dominate. One of my radios, which hadn't been turned on in 4 months, now only gets every 10th channel or so. Must not have been listening when an important software "upgrade" was uploaded...

Bait and switch?

Kevin Hatton · Post by **Kevin Hatton** » 22 May 2007 9:20 am

Any technology service including cable T.V., Satellite T.V., or Satellite radio will occasionally undergo glitches. Its the nature of technology. That also includes electricity for the house and telephone service. It happens. It could even be sabatoge by a competitor. I wouldn't be without XM Satellite and real country music ever. What's the big deal?

Les Anderson · Post by **Les Anderson** » 22 May 2007 9:51 am

We live in the mountains up here in Canada and my satellite radio is the only thing that plays every mile while travelling in and out of the mountain valleys.

I do know what you mean however about some of the channels are now sub-standard. If you think about it however, it took TV almost 20 years to get rid of the sparkling snow on the screen. Maybe in time, the satellite radio broadcasts will be up to par with the FM stereo signals.

Give them time: and of course more money.

Greg Cutshaw · Post by **Greg Cutshaw** » 22 May 2007 9:58 am

My entire family cancelled all of our subscriptions to XM. The selection was fantastic but the diminishing tone quality was just too much to bear. Talk shows started to sound like cheap telephone receivers and the music channels had no bass and hash sounds for highs. Even on my 1500 watt car stereo system with subwoofers and premium speakers, good .wma's and .mp3's sound fantastic, XM sounds nasal. Although XM has adaptive equalization and claims CD quality sound, the truth is their bandwidth sounds like a 3 kilohertz data stream. Too much money for that kind of sound quality. It took me 35 minutes on the phone to get them to cancel the service and for all that grief they will pay by my telling everyone I know about that abuse. They also renewed my subscription using an expired credit card (who checks dates anymore?)

I was into XM the 1st year it came out and intended to be a lifelong customer. They did not maintain their end of the bargain by providing the audio quality a SUBSCRIPTION satellite service should have.

Greg

Kevin Hatton · Post by **Kevin Hatton** » 22 May 2007 10:35 am

I have experienced none of the above problems with the exception of some intermittent signal yesterday. XM notified me about it, and today my signal is again clear as a bell. Plenty of bass and highs end and full range digital sound. Maybe the rpoblem is regional.

Richard Bass · Post by **Richard Bass** » 22 May 2007 11:36 am

I had a few dropouts yesterday but today its fine.
Richard

Pete Burak · Post by **Pete Burak** » 22 May 2007 1:59 pm

I'm thinking of getting one of these cable radio things now:
http://www.pr-inside.com/sirius-satelli ... 131015.htm

Does Buddy Cage still have a cable radio show?

Darvin Willhoite · Post by **Darvin Willhoite** » 22 May 2007 6:36 pm

I haven't noticed any dropouts, I keep XM71 playing all day, every workday on my work computer. I have Sirrius in my truck, and I really have more dropouts with it than I do XM. My wife's Yukon has XM and she hasn't complained about any dropouts either, maybe it's just in certain areas.

Ray Minich · Post by **Ray Minich** » 23 May 2007 4:32 am

Darvin... "Staten Island Groove", and "Bloom", are a couple of my favorite XM71 tunes. I use it to mask the street noise so's I can sleep at night. Change to XM13 during the day...

I did notice that the alphanumeric display was screwing up on XM13 last nite but that's of no importance. What mostly disappointed me was, and has been, the "obviousness" of the reduction in their signal and channel dynamic range over the past years. When they first came about their claim was "CD Quality" music. Well, give a listen to some tracks from "Dark Side of the Moon" from the CD, with headphones, then give a listen to the same tracks from XM-46, and you'll hear the difference, it is substantial.

For most listening situations (i.e. car radio, home radio, boom box, etc.) the difference is not that discernable, just turn up the treble and bass. But, in studio, you'll hear the low bit rate artifacts.

Ray Minich · Post by **Ray Minich** » 23 May 2007 4:33 am

Oops, duplicate post due to slow net connection and impetuous typist...

Les Anderson · Post by **Les Anderson** » 23 May 2007 7:13 am

As per the news yesterday, XM is having multiple problems with one of their four satellites. It has something to do with the stereo feed that is being sent back to earth from the satellite.

Any volunteers to go up and fix the problem?