[The Godfather]

I am highly satisfied with my Walmart-bought new car stereo (xhd6430). It features an HD tuner and I don't have any complaints other than a few silent gaps when the weather is extremely bad.
Has anybody compared the quality of HD radio to XM radio, or 128kbps MP3?

[Oneota]

Originally Posted by The Godfather 

I am highly satisfied with my Walmart-bought new car stereo (xhd6430). It features an HD tuner and I don't have any complaints other than a few silent gaps when the weather is extremely bad.
Has anybody compared the quality of HD radio to XM radio, or 128kbps MP3?

XM sounds like total sh!t, so I would imagine that HD radio is going to sound significantly better. XM's bitrate is quite low (I'm guessing here, but I'd say it's probably 60-90 kbps). The only thing I can stand to listen to on XM is speech (their stand-up channels, for example). Any music channels are just too heavily compressed for me.

[imitchellg5]

Both satellite radio and HD radio are supposed to be 128kbps. Obviously either varies on reception. Here, Sirius sounds a lot better than HD radio. But I lose Sirius every time I go under the slightest bit of building or concrete, which is annoying.

[Paco500]

I rented a Volvo on my last trip to Silicon Valley that had both HD radio and Sirius. The sound quality seemed "fine" but the damn thing spent between 10-20% of the time trying to get signal. This was Silicon Valley- tall buildings and tunnels don't exists. It was overcast a lot of the time, but unless this was a problem with the radio, I'll keep FM. Even AM.

[ghporter]

It is seldom the feed that makes some satellite radio sound bad. It's almost always the reception, which depends on your receiver, your antenna, and your antenna placement. Some places are just wrong for satellite radio-a steel roofed building, for example. I get Sirius XM through DirecTV, and it sounds great, but I'm using a different kind of satellite receiver to pull it down.

My car has a standard radio, not an HD receiver. I have to wonder what I'm missing.

[imitchellg5]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

My car has a standard radio, not an HD receiver. I have to wonder what I'm missing.

You have a Civic right? If it's through the stock stereo, probably not a lot. I've driven a Q5 without HD Radio and then sat in one with HD Radio... there was a noticeable difference in the lack of "fuzz" as well as less of a "tinny" sound from highs compared with standard radio.

[The Godfather]

That is exactly what I am not hearing: fuzz and tin. A definite improvement.

[ghporter]

Originally Posted by imitchellg5 

You have a Civic right? If it's through the stock stereo, probably not a lot. I've driven a Q5 without HD Radio and then sat in one with HD Radio... there was a noticeable difference in the lack of "fuzz" as well as less of a "tinny" sound from highs compared with standard radio.

If you were referring to the acoustics in my car not being up to being able to hear the difference, maybe you haven't been in a new Civic lately. CDs sound noticeably better than FM in my car, and so does an iPod.

There are a number of HD radio stations here, including a jazz station hosted by a university. While some of the old stuff is special because you can hear the recording artifacts, newer stuff should be clean, and it's much nicer when you don't hear the FM artifacts. I'm still wondering.

[imitchellg5]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

If you were referring to the acoustics in my car not being up to being able to hear the difference, maybe you haven't been in a new Civic lately. CDs sound noticeably better than FM in my car, and so does an iPod.

As they should. What I meant was when you factor in (loud-ish) Honda road noise, a cheap 4 or 6 speaker stereo, etc, there probably wouldn't be that much of a difference. If you were to put in a nice new head unit and perhaps some new speakers you'd surely notice the difference.

But IMHO, HD radio isn't great because it still has what I loathe about radio: adverts. I can make it to the store sometimes before I hear music.

[Big Mac]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

It is seldom the feed that makes some satellite radio sound bad. It's almost always the reception, which depends on your receiver, your antenna, and your antenna placement. Some places are just wrong for satellite radio-a steel roofed building, for example. I get Sirius XM through DirecTV, and it sounds great, but I'm using a different kind of satellite receiver to pull it down.

That may be true for HD radio but I don't think it's accurate for Sirius XM quality. When the antenna placement is bad with satellite, you just lose your signal completely or it goes in and out. You don't get a difference in audio quality, only in your ability to pick it up at all.

[BadKosh]

Car acoustics and shape make it impossible to have accurate sound reproduction. Wattage and speakers don't matter.

[ghporter]

Originally Posted by imitchellg5 

As they should. What I meant was when you factor in (loud-ish) Honda road noise, a cheap 4 or 6 speaker stereo, etc, there probably wouldn't be that much of a difference. If you were to put in a nice new head unit and perhaps some new speakers you'd surely notice the difference.

But IMHO, HD radio isn't great because it still has what I loathe about radio: adverts. I can make it to the store sometimes before I hear music.

Good points. At least to some extent. My car is hardly silent, but it's not that "loud-ish" with road noise-better than some other brands I've ridden in. The speakers sound great, especially at a stop, but that doesn't mean I'm hearing great reproduction either.

The thing is that without road sounds (noise from the tires, noises from other vehicles), I don't feel that I'm experiencing what's going on around me, so I sort of like having that kind of feedback...

But as for advertising on HD radio, I have really gotten used to SiriusXM's lack of commercial interruptions, and having to deal with commercial radio in my car has been a pain-I usually listen to NPR or the local college jazz station to avoid commercials.

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

That may be true for HD radio but I don't think it's accurate for Sirius XM quality. When the antenna placement is bad with satellite, you just lose your signal completely or it goes in and out. You don't get a difference in audio quality, only in your ability to pick it up at all.

It's been my experience that resolution degrades before the signal disappears. Maybe it's 128 with good reception, but it starts to drop frames and thus reduce sound quality with an impeded signal. Sort of like broadcast HDTV with pixelation and artifacting when you have a poor signal.

[phantomdragonz]

I have been rocking the Pandora through my iphone in my car...

much better then radio....

-Zach

[indigoimac]

I had those XM free demos for a few months on my new new cars when I got them. I thought it was pretty agreeable -- audio was definitely pretty compressed though. The pop stuff was pretty good as was spoken word, classical was very non-dynamic so lots of compression going on there.

Totally not worth the money, I guess, unless you spend lots of time on the highway and don't want to deal with finding stations. I also found signal strength to be good even in parking garages, even underground sometimes. Tunnels were not a problem either. Nice that it was free, but easily lived without.

I have not much experience with HD, but I didn't find it to be particularly compressed really. I think it's up to the stations themselves and they more they want to pack onto their frequency the worse it gets.

[The Godfather]

HD also improves the clarity and vivaciousness of AM talk programmes, such as Rush Limbaugh.