Sirius radio quality vs redbook cd player

+1 for TPReaves, Gz3827, and Charles1dad.

For a rough comparison and ignoring codec issues, etc.:
Sirius internet radio premium specs a bitrate of 128 Kbits/sec (Kbps).
Pandora radio premium -192 Kbps
Standard resolution MP3 -100 to 192 Kbps
Highest resolution MP3 - 320 Kbps
PCM from Compact Disk 1411 Kbps.

perhaps gratioutously, i'll add that although xm/sirius still advertise that they're "cd quality", they're not even close--they sound tinny and compressed even on great equipment. i'm inevitably surprised on the rare occassions i listen to fm at how much better fm sounds than xm. can't fault xm's programming, however--still can't live without it.

Bummer. I was hoping I'd hear nothing but glowing praises of SiriusXM. My system is currently down while I hunt for a new amp; but I was looking forward to taking advantage of SiriusXM's wide selection of music when it was up and running again. Wife and I love it in our car; so, I thought that getting it for the home stereo would be a no brainer. Now you guys have dashed my dreams on the rocks! As to service, Gz3827 is right. I had a horrible experience with their customer support yesterday when I had a simple tech question. Was on hold forever, and when I finally did have a techie answer, I got kicked back on hold 10 secs into my question. I did receive an apology to a critical email I fired off to them. But their customer service definitely needs improvement. Anyhoo, thanks for your input.

I had Sirius in my last car which I traded in 11-11. From 2007-2010 the quality was OK for the car - not great but not too bad either. In 2010 or maybe early 2011 they did a channel re-org and added more channels. This seems to have increased the amount of compression used, and the Sirius became virtually unlistenable, even casually. Sustained vocal, guitar and piano notes would actually wobble a bit in pitch, and there was a lot of distortion. It sounded a lot like a cheap cassette deck. Both my car radio and the home unit I bought gave similar results.

I didn't do Sirius in my new car and cancelled service on the home radio I had.

Have had SiriusXM since I bought my car earlier this year. I've never noticed the inferior sound; but that might be because I'm always singing along with the music in the car. My expectations for quality sound in the car were never high. Whereas with my home system, I'm glued to my listening chair and focused on every nuance of the music coming through the speakers. I love both listening experiences!