Is it data compression? FM on the same radio sounds good, but music on the satellite radio sounds terrible.

Or could it just be that I'm not getting a very good signal?

I'm not sure why it's not sounding good but I believe as with anything digital you either have a good signal or no signal. At least that's the way it is with digital TV. If the signal's weak you get nothing.

I would guess it's a matter of how much bandwith they are dedicating to it .... The more you compress it down, the more channels you can broadcast.

Is the sound worse than FM? I'm guessing that they both use mp3 128kps these days.

I've noticed some channels "sound better" than others but here at work it sounds better than FM.

The wife has XM in her car and IMO Sirius sounds better.

Could it be that at work I have a base station playing through one of those compact JVC systems.

Also I heard exactly what Joe said.

Rich

Here it definitely sounds worse than FM. Way worse. And I suspect Joe is right - it's data compression.

As long as it sounds as "good" as an ipod, who cares right
20:1 @ -40db and all is well

It doesn't sound as good as in iPod. Not close.

As long as you replace those terrible white headphones I'm a fan of iPods, by the way, just as I liked Walkmen before them. Obviously it's not the same thing as sitting in front of a serious audio system, but for portable applications and especially long airplane flights (with Bose QuietComfort 3 headphones - yeah baby!) they're great.