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I can only give you my listening experiances. Been trying out satellite recently (sirius) and fed it through a DA converter. Its close too cd and less etched compared to my wadia
Try it and see wht the think. I gave it the edge as its great for jazz

Rumney510, I can't deny your results, as I can't your system, but something is up with your CD playback. (It may not be your CDP, but maybe the brightness of your system is tamed by the compressed signal from Sirius.) Don't get me wrong, I enjoy Sirius too, but no where near the quality of my CDP.

I'm glad to see so many liking the cable/ sat. music.---Assuming you are going into a quality dac./w/a quality dig. cable--I was with Directv for years with a modified Sony sat.box w/ coax-out.---I am now with TWC. Player/dac-AA Prestige.
Cable Violin Concherto.--By remote control I can switch between music channels/cds; and it is much closer than most might assume.
I actually have had a Sony sacd player for 2 years. I now have 2 sacd players and no software.--Almost forgot,I have a dvd-a changer/no software there,either

Vinyl not auditioned in so long; read old/lazy,to be sure of its place

I also had directTV and was not very impressed with the quality. Sirius used with an antenna is great! Sirius also offers for an extra fee CD quality feeds over the computer. I dont have this service.
My sirius antenna feeds clocklink at 48 and not 44.1 does this mean it isnt a CD.source.

I have a wadia 861 which I dont like and it drove me to vinyl. I can listen to sirius tho withiut getting upset

Whether it be sat. or cable the 48 is standard for each. My AA upconverts 48 to 192--acording to the front readout. Those whom complain about compressed cable or sat. music channels; just don't have the right equipment. THIS does not refer to xm/sirius over the air without cable or sat.--I never heard that; and don't comment on that which I haven't heard.
To recap re.set-top boxes. Most Directv boxes do only 5'1 or maybe 48 over toslinc.---One can't expect much there.---Most cable boxes have coax-out--For most of them, the audio format can be changed in the menu to '2ch' and that is where the good audio signal can be helped by a quality dac.