John101477

never even heard of those groups lol. i am fairly comfortable with most main stream bands or groups but i bet i have only listened to a hand full of anything older than late 70's rock, all country, and some non hard core rap. i can count the songs that are not country on my ipod on 1 hand i think

NYChopshop

Well, I don't know of any type of music that in one way or another (other than archaic old recording equipment coloring the sound way back when, but that's another type of distinct aesthetic sound, but blablabla) use the entire frequency range. I totally agree on the hotel california needing a lot of bass, but in order to get a grin-inspiring reaction out of the lovers of that song, you need to cover midbass more than the sub section. Small diameter subs or even quality midbass speakers with enough excursion can totally cover the lows without being really noticeable until you turn up the volume a LOT. There just isnt as much information down there that needs to be reproduced as say hard rock, electronica or hip-hop. If you have a pair of subs and an inferior midbass setup, you'll have less of a good time listening to hotel california and most of the bass guitar's essence will be lost between the component speakers and the very low frequencies of a true subwoofer (as in not mid-bass driver). You will just wind up with a lot of boomy lower harmonics from the bass and it will stick out to your ears. A quality set of midbass drivers on a speaker set that are large enough or dedicated midbass drivers will much better suit that music and until you pump up the volume to the point where the small diameter speakers need to use so much wattage and make such far excursions in order to produce those lowest frequencies louder will be obvious only at those higher volumes. Until you get to that point, speakers of any size can reproduce any frequency, but only up to a certain volume. I bought my sister an E36 BMW 328 IS coupe that was totally loaded. It had the BMW high end Harman Kardon 3-piece components up front with 6.5" speakers in the doors along with separate midrange and tweeters. There were something like 6x8" speakers in the rear decklid that were very nice and high excursion. Soundproofing was good on it, but not anywhere near what the newer cars have. I think the soundproofing was about what I can accomplish on most other cars with a couple bulk packs of dynamat and an arseload of time to fit it into all the nooks and crannies. I had never before purchased a car and not considered upgrading the stereo. No subs in the car, so until you turned up the volume to ROMP levels (or up to 11, for all you spinal tap fans), it got superb bass response out of those smaller diameter speakers because the cones moved so far in and out and the factory amplifier had the juice to make them do it. At reasonable listening levels - and I listen to pretty abusive music, honestly - I was totally happy with the performance of the thing. My sister loooved it. Loved it into the back of an F-150 in traffic one day tho. I bet she was rocking out to the stereo.

John101477

oh that sucks chop. yeah my big beef wth some of the bmw's was the hu integration. the speaker side was a pita to work around but do-able. the bmw hu was this really slim and wide deal that was way to integrated into the dash. my beef with some of todays cars is the integration of the head unit in to the wiring. think 2001 chevey impala integrated into the air bag system and 2005 dodge magnum integrated into everything. i mean come on man a car should still be able to start with out a stereo....
since i have been out of the industry a lot has changed with auto audio but i don't have to deal with it any more.

NYChopshop

Yes, I agree. BMW has been waaay ahead of the game on being a pain in the arse with proprietary electronics and wiring, but for pete's sake... chevy? dodge? 'turn the key and it starts' is most of the reason they used to sell their products. Good thing you couldn't pay me to drive a new magnum or impala! When you buy a BMW (from my experience) with the full-tilt stereo from the factory, at least you get something you wont feel the immediate need to upgrade. I've sat in the new magnums with the optioned 6 disk gag-me-with-a-spoon stereos... not so nice. A whopping 66 watts of total power. The new impalas? Well... let me just say my buddy has a 1994 impala. I mentioned it elsewhere. Nice big fat V8, simple electronics, lots of room... now that's what I'm talking about! The entire trunk was converted into a subwoofer box. IMPRESSIVE. The new cars with the computer controlled part-time V8? no thanks.

John101477

hahaha yeah they suck. i bought a magnum and really like the ride. i bought it wen gas was reaching 5 bucks a gallon so i only got the v6 but it still has plenty for the wife. i have done a lot of research on it for upgrades to the system and lets just say there would have to be more gismoes in it than it would be worth. it stays stock for now....
still un sure what my next wife mobile will be but i am fairly certain is will not be made in italy or be from government motors. maybe a toy or a nissan. my problem is that i do not like the design of toy cars ( love the trucks) and i would die of humiliation if my car sounded like the jetson mobile.

aviator

IDK John if we could get a one of those cool little new Fiat 500s over here I'd probably get one... they're just funky lookin' in a retro way like the mini is, and the factory custom possibilities are nearly endless...

John101477

oh hell no!!! looks like a VW miniture. ugliest thing i ever seen.

mastacox

For the record, Sirius and XM receivers DO receive signal directly from the satellite. Some are just "augmented" by groud stations in large densely populated areas where satellite signal is hard to get.

aviator

That's interesting... I thought that was the case but when I asked Sirius themselves they said it came through the cell sys. only and was sent to the towers via sat. signal... It really would be nice to get a straight answer on this from them... I'll call them in the morning and see if I can get someone who actually knows and get them to send me the straight dope...

John101477

i found this on their website. one thing to note with all satellites reception is if you are in a deep canyon and loose line of sight with the satellites you will loose reception. with only 3 satellites, loosing line of sight would not be hard. this in itself could be a problem aviator

This unique listening experience is available to subscribers from coast-to-coast in the United States. The service can be used in cars, trucks, RVs, homes, offices, stores, and even outdoors. Boaters around the country, and up to 200 miles offshore, can also hear SIRIUS. SIRIUS provides premium quality programming delivered by three dedicated satellites orbiting directly over the United States.

mastacox

Whoever you talked to has no idea what they're talking about! I'm quite sure my antenna receives satellite, because I can lose signal under open metal roofs like the Sonic drive in. If it was all cell-based, I wouldn't lose signal. There are ground repeater networks in some areas to help with coverage around large skyscrapers and in buildings like in NY City. However there is no ground repeater network where I live, so I'm listening to 100% satellite signal.

From Wikipedia:

aviator

Thanks for clearing that up guys... I wonder why the signal would drop out in some cell dead zones in northern Ont. then? According to the signal map it is well within the coverage zone of the sats... wonder if it could be some intentional dead zone for gov./mil. reasons?... doubt that... ! it's a big conspiracy man!

and why has Sirius canceled the life time plan? that's the one I'd have gone for...

John your last paragraph sounds like ad copy for sirius

mastacox

IMO, the lifetime plan wasn't as good a deal as it sounded, because it is only for the lifetime of your receiever. As a general rule, I would say most receievers only last 2-3 years or so cooking in the sun (my Starmate is almost 4 years old and it's screen is pretty much useless these days). In addition, if you want to upgrade or change your receiver you have to buy a new plan, your old lifetime plan is not transferrable (as is the case with any plan you buy, 1-year and 2-year included). If you buy a 2-year subscription and your receiver is stolen or dies, you have to buy a whole new plan.

aviator

That's weird... again as it was explained to me the lifetime plan was for "your" life not the "receivers" life... I guess those razz a frazzin' sales types will say anything to hook you... I could not find anything in the ad literature that said it was the life of the receiver... I guess that fine print would be in the contract they sent you later... sound like they are almost as bad as a cable co.
if regular commercial radio was'nt getting so craptastic I would'nt even be considering sat. radio...

NYChopshop

Ultimately, my problem with satellite radio is the sound quality. Satellite radio uses a variable bit rate (or VBR) that usually runs between 5kbps and 50kbps. They use their own proprietary compression CODECs, but there just is no getting around the bitrate. On a good day, I can always hear artifacting and loss of definition, but when the reception gets patchy (as I find it often does - especially here in NYC!) its totally unlistenable. If you are totally happy with the sonic experience of most ipods or mp3 players, you'll probably still notice the loss of sound quality. I most certainly prefer CD quality (or even high bitrate mp3's for that matter) over the standard 128kbps that most computers are set to rip at, and even enough so to prefer keeping a stack of CDs around vs. using an ipod jack. I'm happy listening to the music at over about double that bit rate, at least in the 200's. I trained my ears to listen to the nuances in sound and the relationships between tones and to quality... it's really hard for me to overlook the obvious sonic faults I find with satellite radio, but I could just be overzealous. Feel free to disregard what I have to say if it doesn't really matter to you.

mastacox

Well, after searching the terms of service, the lifetime subscription plan is only for the lifetime of the unit but can be transferred to another receiever a maximum of 3 times as long as its a portable reciever (not built-in to a car).

aviator

So looking at that masta it would seem as long as you are careful with the equipment you could potentially get 20yrs or more out of the subscription just by paying the transfer fee when the gear wears out...
of course it's all academic as the lifetime deal no longer seems to be available.

chopper what software are you using to rip with? I've been using Nero7 with good results when I burn at a very low speed [either audio burn or 5xs over - can't remember which just now my burning computer has been down for a while with vid. issues]

NYChopshop

The software doesn't matter, its about the mp3 CODEC or compression/decompression algorithm. Any ripper software that rips to mp3 will use the same CODEC. Some color the sound a little by adding 'processing' to 'improve' the sound, and some try to apply further algorithms to the ripping process in order to better approximate the sound it's trying to represent, but the quality is ultimately only really improved by upping the bitrate, or 'resolution' if you will, of this approximate representation of a sound. The higher the bitrate, the better the sound. Burning at low speeds also won't up the quality, just the likelihood that you won't have a real digital error in the burn that will ruin the track at best and the whole CD at worst. Again, the CD burning software doesn't matter either. Whatever speed or software you want to put the same digital sequence of 1's and 0's on without error or interruption, is all the same. Burning full, uncompressed, CD quality audio quality versions of mp3's is also another EPIC fail I've seen people do. If its already chopped up by the compression, there is no getting that information back. Upping the quality to CD quality just wastes space you could put other mp3's in. Okay, maybe its not that epic, but its still pretty dumb. This is an EPIC fail: https://www.yotatech.com/forums/f5/g...s-tank-182643/

aviator

So how would you boost up the bit rate?

NYChopshop

well, I just use windows media player to rip. If you click on Tools >> Options, there is a tab for "Rip Music" and a slider that goes from 128 to 320 kbp/s. For a full CD's worth of data, the 128 kbp/s take up about 57 MB per CD's worth of data. 320 kbp/s takes up about 144 MB for a full CD. Guess what mine is set to. I feel like every piece of ripping software should have that adjustable, or its not really very good ripping software at all. Especially if what Microcrap gives you for free does a better job...