I have XM at the shop and it sounds fine, but this is in a noisy environment so I wasn't really paying attention to quality.

I decided to put xm in my FD with an XM Direct 2 unit that connects to my Alpine head unit via the network connector in the back.
Installation went well, everything turned out clean, blah blah.

It sounds like ****. I mean like AM ****. Everything sounds muffled and just not vibrant. I thought I would hear something that was better than FM. I was expecting sup par MP3 style sound, but it was much worse. Just terrible.

I've been reduced to just listening to my ipod or listing to "Raw Dog" comedy. (******' merger). All the rock stations just sound like a mess, the pop stations are a bit better but I have no interest in top 40.

Is it supposed to sound this bad? Or is this an issue with the XM Direct 2 unit?

 

I had XM in my car. When using the fm modulator, it sounded like total crap. However, when I switched to aux inputs it sounded fine. That was with a roady. I dont know about that direct 2 unit. Does it have a regular headphone jack you can use earphones on to test the quality? From the pics it doesn't look like it does.

 

nope this thing plugs directly to the head unit and the head unit does all the controlling.

 

Not many options for diagnosis on it. Try checking out a local electronics store and see if they have one on demo so you compare to what you hear in your car. It's possible you got a bum unit. XM doesn't sound like CD quality like they try and advertise, but it definitely sounds better than FM.

 

I was hoping for at least FM, it doesn't even sound close.

Anyone know of a different unit that plugs in to an Alpine ida-x100?

 

When I used my XM(1000?) decoder on my Car PC, I heard people bitching about quality, so someone made a Optical Out module you just soldered to the mainboard, and sound quality increased dramatically, due to it being digital and optical, the only RFI I get is from the Analog line outs to the Amp... And that's mostly from the car, and somewhat unavoidable... I heard I could try and shield the power supply of the PC with aluminum foil, and it'd reduce it... but I'm afraid of a short or overheat....

If you can try and put headphones, or PC speakers in the line out and see if it's the line out or the head unit that's causing you grief.

 

Yeah mine does sound like crap, and I always seem to have to turn up the volume to the max. I have mine running through the FM mod. They say on their site that the best connection is through a tape player! WTF!

Also the Sirius XM merger blows the ****, HARD!

What makes me mad about it, is I am listening to the same stations as Sirius, but I have to pay for howard and playboy channel! If they merged together why the hell have two different things, just make it one big package.

 

xm and sirius i think both have terrible quality no matter how you hook it up. They are only broadcast at 128kbps or 96kbps which I can't listen to. I wish they would come out with a premium package or something with a higher bit rate that people who can actually hear will enjoy

 

You can use this AInet auxillary converter:

http://www.logjamelectronics.com/piealpairca.html

and hook up any XM receiver to it using a mini-jack to RCA cable.

MattG, get rid of that FM modulator. It truly is garbage. Does your head unit have an aux in?

 

Yeah it does, If I decide to keep it I will use that set up, but right now I just dont know. I will try it with the RCA jacks and maybe I will like it better then.

 

Sorry this is the unit I have, so I can just plug speakers into the RCA outs...

And I had to dremmel out an additional hole to get the optical plug to show through.

 

I have it hooked up via AUX and it sounds like *** compared to ipod/cd/HD radio. the fact is it broadcasts at a *CLAIMED* 64kbps, (keep in mind, most mp3's are ripped at 128kbps and most folks have problem hearing the compression in that) however my next door neighbor works for XM and told me a little secret, their **** is lucky to make it out over 32kbps just due to bandwidth limitations. Talk radio/comedy/traffic etc goes out even lower (like cell phone quality) it pisses me off, but it's still worth having IMO for long driving.