Sirius Streamer - Am I doing something wrong?

[DiscoRage]

My father won a Sirius Streamer GT receiver. He's already an XM subscriber, so he gave it to me.

I activated my radio last night, and so far, I'm really disappointed with the sound quality. Sounds very thick and muddy. I often hear compression artifacts.Spikes aren't uncommon and my tweeters crackle. My father is using his XM receiver on the stock deck in his car, using the FM transmitter and it sounds better than this! It sounds like I'm listening to a 64 kbit mp3.

I have it hooked up using a standard y-cable. I'm not using the FM transmitter. See my signature for my system specs. I really don't think it should sound like this. Am I missing something? Is there an EQ? Different codecs? Something hidden somewhere that will allow me to tweak the sound? It sounds absolutely horrible!

[Wireworm5]

I'm not familiar with Sirius, but if you have access to many stations than its quite possible to have such a low compression in order to accomadate all the info on the bandwidth. I now when I listen to sat. music from my dish that it doesn't have the resolution of a cd, but its not that bad as you discribe.
Car audio can sound pleasing, but in the taxi I drive the bass is fake and I imagine the other frequencies are boosted as well. I find it to be irratating, but this is what most people are exposed to and in their minds its good audio. But compared to your home audio and mine the Paradigms are neutral and a reveal far more resolution than the car audio. So as a result we hear the limitations of radio and have become spoiled to what music is really suppose to sound like.

[topspeed]

Welcome to the wonderful world of compression.

Supposedly, Sirius and XM are going to either increase bandwidth or switch compression formats here in the near future to combat HD radio. Streaming video is part of the strategy as well. Of course, none of this helps your current situation which unfortunately, is unresolveable. MP3 quality playback and high resolution playback do not make good bedfellows.

[DiscoRage]

Thanks for the input guys. I think I might keep it for the sake of talk radio/comedy, and occasionally, music while I'm cleaning up the apartment.

I just wish it was as good as advertised. I know my system is modest, but it's pretty damn high end considering my age/income. I'm just wondering if my system is revealing things you wouldn't normally hear on a consumer level system.