The Howard Stern Show

[Nicklab]

XM has had free streaming for subscribers for some time now.  I really enjoy their service and I finally listen to radio now, and not CD's.  I thought XM offered a better overall package, and as much of a Stern fan as I had been (listening steadily from 1988 - about 2000 or so), it just got tired to me.  I liked some of the personalities and the programming on XM more, so I went with their offering.

[jjks]

Sirius has had free streaming to subscribers for a long time too. I believe they are specifically talking about streaming Howards show, which I guess wasn't available until recently.

I'm still REALLY glad I chose Sirius over XM. I've rented cars with XM several times, and have been consistenly underwhelmed with their music channels. Their sports selection however is quite impressive!

[Matt_Fury]

I saw a recent episode of Attack of the Show where they were discussing Sirius and XM versus local radio and wether or not people would subscribe.  One of the hosts mentioned that the sound quality for satellite radio was not all that great, comparing it to listening to an iPod through a wet sock.  Is the sound quality really poor on satellite radio?

[Nicklab]

I'm still REALLY glad I chose Sirius over XM. I've rented cars with XM several times, and have been consistenly underwhelmed with their music channels. Their sports selection however is quite impressive!

Really?  I've found that if anything there are almost too many music channels to choose from.  I've locked in on about half a dozen music channels that I listen to regularly along with their High Voltage channel.  The celebrity DJ's are cool, but I never seem to catch Bob Dylan's show or Tom Petty's Buried Treasure.

I really like the sports package overall.  They've got MLB, the NHL, NASCAR, they've got two channels for the World Cup...I'm pretty happy with it.  When I compared the sports packages I had to think about it.  But when it came down to the NFL vs MLB, I had to side with XM and their MLB package.  There are just so many more games, and I always make a point of watching the NFL on television.  The only downside I've found to the MLB package is that when the Yankees are on the road I have to listen to the home team's announcer.  But the fact that I can listen to the Yanks all over the country is great, especially since I tend to listen to more baseball games on the radio.

[Nicklab]

I saw a recent episode of Attack of the Show where they were discussing Sirius and XM versus local radio and wether or not people would subscribe.  One of the hosts mentioned that the sound quality for satellite radio was not all that great, comparing it to listening to an iPod through a wet sock.  Is the sound quality really poor on satellite radio?

It depends on the bandwidth that's assigned to a particular channel.  With some channels, mainly the sports ones, there is definitely some digital compression evident.  But one of the things I wind up listening to is baseball.  Locally, I can hear the games on an AM station, but when I listen on my XM unit the game is broadcast in stereo, so that' actually better than what I had been listening to.  I can sometimes hear it on some music channels.  Where I tend to notice it the most is in some higher frequencies, such as how cymbals on a drum set sound.  I would characterize it as a kind of audio "shimmer", whereas some others might call it refer to it as an audio phenonmena similar to phasing.

But in the case of satellite radio, the more bandwidth assigned to a channel, the better the audio quality.  The higher profile channels will tend to get more bandwidth.

[Jesse James]

Matt, I've not personally found that to be true in the slightest on my radio...  I've listened to a variety of channels and actually I'd say my quality on my stereo surpasses anything else I've listened to, but that's me.

I've not had any channel sound bad at all though...  Very clear, very high quality (to me at least).

I'm glad I made the Sirius choice as well...  NBA, NFL, NHL, MLB, NASCAR, Stern...  If I want O&A I can listen to them on Testicle Radio if need be but their show's never impressed me...  Stern's not someone I always agree with and not everything he does is god's gift to the world but he's by far the funniest person on air if you ask me.  His show has only gotten better since he moved.

Now that he has rights to all his tapes off of his old gig, I'm sure it's only about to get better since his best stuff will be on-air once more... 

I got my Sirius as a gift for X-Mas from my mother...  I've not regretted it in the slightest.  It's truly the future of radio to me...  I am hoping they put out a 3rd Stern channel with just old stuff on it at some point...  I listen to Howard 100 the most right now, I don't flip over to 101 much, but I do check out some of the music channels (they're really nice if you're a music buff I think, I'm more into comedy/talk though) and I dig the sports stuff tremendously.  To me the NFL deal is almost worth the price of Sirius alone because I find I'm in my car a bit on Sundays it seems (good toy run day. ).

I was just listening about 30 minutes ago on my way down here to my gf's place...  Catching up on some stuff I'd missed, and loving every second of it.

[Famine]

I tried listening to Stern again on the radio, and it was so damned graphic and vulgar, I had to turn it off. It was a re-run of an April show, the 4th I believe. It was not the Stern I learned to enjoy at times.

Kevin

[Nicklab]

I'm glad I made the Sirius choice as well...  NBA, NFL, NHL, MLB, NASCAR,

FYI, Major League Baseball is only available on XM Satellite Radio, much in the same way the NFL is only on Sirius.

[Jesse James]

Ah that's right, they tried the MLB deal to counter when Sirius signed Stern but then they lost NASCAR and I think the NFL contract shortly thereafter...

I loathe baseball so I don't keep up with it.  It's tough to watch much less listen to. 

[Nicklab]

The Stern fans seem very much like a bunch of kooks with recent news.  One of them actually physically attacked a producer from the Opie & Anthony show.  Apparently he was dealt with "swiftly" by their security staff.

[Jesse James]

Yes because of course large groups of people all act alike.

[Nicklab]

    

[Jesse James]

The Stern fans seem very much like a bunch of kooks with recent news.  One of them actually physically attacked a producer from the Opie & Anthony show.

Since you said "The Stern Fans", and "seem like a bunch of kooks" for a news story that some person who may perhaps be a Stern Fan attacked someone from O&A, call me crazy but I just thought that sounded like a generalization...  IE: One guy's actions denote the behavior of a large group's actions, etc., etc.

I'm just bustin' balls on it Nick, but I'm sorry it confused you what I was getting at with my reply though about generalizations.  I'll make sure and pull quotes next time and use all appropriate smiley faces for clarity.

[Nicklab]

Listen to the audio clip in the article.  The guy praises Howard Stern before he attacks the producer.  That's just a fact.

[SilverZ]

Just to confirm, yes, I was just pointing out that the Howard channels specifically began streaming.

I've had XM for years now, and now having had Sirius for some 6 months or so, I can certainly say that XM's music catalogue depth and programming is vastly superior to Sirius.

XM's channels (that I frequented) would play obscure tracks and bands while the comparable channel on Sirius plays the equivalent of any generic "Hits of the 19xxs" CD -- this is where Sirius really shows that it is staffed by radio employees instead of new media pioneers.

As far as audio quality, they're both not so hot if you're a serious music enthusiast, IMO. XM is better and like Nick mentioned, will allocate more bandwidth to channels when necessary. They all still sound pretty tinny to me, though, when I listen at home. Sirius sounds just awful at home. I believe the highest bandwidth they allocate is 96k per second.

That's the setting I use on my VOIP phone.