It sounds like XM has better sound than Sirius, Sirius comes with my DISH package so that is the only reason I have it. There is an add out from Polk Audio for a "high end" XM receiver, wonder if that makes a difference. I too have found different channels have different sound quality. The contemporary jazz channel sounds very good to me at least. I have never listened to NPR or news/sports channels so they may be more compressed and not sound as good.

But the bottom line I think for many sat users the sound is acceptable. Acceptable being the key word not perfect or better than cd but acceptable to listen to. I find myself as I get older I listen to the music more than how the music sounds. I think everyone knows what I mean, we all have a great demo disk but it may not be the type of music we usually listen to.

Of course this group has much higher standards, so I do understand some people not finding the sound quality acceptable.

I do understand that sat exposes everyone to new music and that can generate new cd sales, however in my case I am happy just with the sat music playing a mix of music that I like but would not even know what group to buy unless I really track what I listen to and write the names of the groups down.