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XM Radio or HD Radio?
TBS asked:
I know the difference between the 2 options, but I would like to know what you think is the best option. Does XM radio have good quality? Is it as good as HD Radio? I know XM costs per month, but HD radio requires a special receiver or cd player. So quality wise how is XM radio compares to hd?
I know the difference between the 2 options, but I would like to know what you think is the best option. Does XM radio have good quality? Is it as good as HD Radio? I know XM costs per month, but HD radio requires a special receiver or cd player. So quality wise how is XM radio compares to hd?
9 Responses on XM Radio or HD Radio?
yeah Id like to wait to see which technology outlasts the other before I spend the money.
I love HD radio.
XM is fine too, but I’m just a cheapskate.
They are both high quality.
neither. XM doesnt have a lot of variety on their channels. HD doesnt really sound all that different
get HD its all an unneeded scam I remember when watching TV was free now its totally expected you have to get cable to watch it same thing seems to be happening to radio
sorry but i really cant help you , you will need so help from someone that know about tenchtronics
I have XM radio and LOVE it. It’s so helpful wherethere’s no radio reception. You have to buy an XM reciever if it’s not already built into yourcar, and there’s a monthly fee. HD radio requiresa new reciever, antenna, and basically a complete new radio. And it doesn’t have all around reception. XM is the way to go!
The two are not comparable. XM Radio is a whole different network of stations with digital quality broadcasts, and dozens of different genres of music, run by a single company. HD Radio is simply a broadcast technology that allows existing FM stations to broadcast their programs with better sound quality. The stations are owned by the same media companies that own regular FM. The sound quality you’ll get from either will depend more on the quality of the audio components YOU have in your car or home. With good equipment (especially good speakers) both will sound fine. With cheap equipment, both will sound worse. At least most of XM is commerical-free and has a much wider variety of music. Commercial FM ,incl HD Radio is mostly dumbed down commerical crapola.
Both services use lossy codecs to broadcast. Both use some form of SBR (spectral band replication) to achieve perceived higher quality at lower bitrates (except Sirius). HD (or Hybrid Digital for short, not high def) uses HDC with some believing it was derived from HE-AAC. XM uses ctAACplus. Sirius uses it’s own version of PAC which is the only service that doesn’t use SBR (better in my opinion). Interesting fact: PAC was to be used for HD radio, but iBiquity Digital Corporation, who “invented” HD radio changed it in 2003.
With HD radio, the bitrate/quality are dependent on the station. If they decide to broadcast more than one channel on their carrier, then the quality of the broadcast on the digital channels will suffer. If/When stations pull the analog portion of their signal, the quality will increase if station owners decide to not insert more channels on the carrier.
HD radio programming only exists from the transmitter, so it would be just like listening to radio as far as distance. The range however for the digital broadcasts are less than the analog signal. HD radio requires special equipment, but in the future, stations might decide for some content to have a subscription to listen. They are required to have at least one channel that is free and at equal or greater quality than the analog signal.
Honestly, the real breaking point would be programming, at least for now. I prefer Sirius because of the absence of SBR (adds grunge). The programming is not bad and it has quite a few channels to choose from. Although with the pending merger of Sirius and XM, it’s hard to tell what happens to equipment. Sirius and XM are not compatible.
If you live in an area where stations operate with low ERP (power), then the digital portion of the broadcast might not come through all the time. It really defeats the purpose of buying the new radio to receive the IBOC broadcasts (in band-on channel).
Depends where you live. Bigger cities have more HD channels than rural areas. I agree with previous posts about XM sound quality. I canceled by XM subscription because it sounds super compressed and worse than a MP3 file. Sirius sounds better but without geostationary satellites, the moving satellite (one over north America at a time) signal is worse at times affecting reception.
I am hopeful for HD. It allows the current radio signal to be split into up to 3 different formats. So, in theory, you will be able to get the variety of satellite radio without paying a monthly fee.
Based on equipment costs, you are going to pay hundreds of dollars on satellite receivers, subscription and activations fees as well as an HD radio conversion kit or new receiver.
So for the here and now if you are in a rural area, satellite may be the better choice but in the next few years HD radio will offer similar qualities of satellite with a monthly fee as more and more stations adopt the new technology.
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