Posted this as a reply in the general discussion about renewing Sirius, but maybe it'll get more responses here. A Google-wide search hasn't turned much up.

I can't figure out why Sirius on my '13 w/ Shaker sounds like it's playing underwater. There is something horribly wrong with it. Satellite radio doesn't sound that bad, most of the time... I have heard a lot of XM radios over the years and they sound great. Most recently was on a '14 Chevy Sonic rental which I drove to/from Florida for the holiday. Sounds as good, if not better, than FM. But when I get in the Mustang and hit the Sirius button, all semblance of remotely decent sound quality goes out the window. Sometimes I just fire up the Sirius/XM app and listen over Bluetooth.. sounds 1000x better.

What gives? Has anyone else experienced this problem? I wish I could just pull out the Sirius tuner and swap it with an XM. They always seem to sound better.

 

Mine sounded the same way. The volume was way lower than fm as well. Even after I swapped to the factory nav it sounded like crap. I called sirius and they told me to talk to ford....ford told me to talk to sirius. Bs

 

When I was bluetooth in my music from my
Iphone, even was phone volume maxed out, the car radio volume always seemed lower than a C.D.

Once I put all my music into a USB hub and plugged it into the centre console, the volume was increased a ton!

 

The Sirius radio in my 2011 (shaker 500) sounds 'almost' as good as the CD does. Just saying.........

 

My satellite radio sounded like it was underwater also. The highs just weren't there so I added an eq and amped all four speakers and that made it sound better. It's still doesn't sound as good as FM or the IPod, but it is better than before.

 

i dont have satellite radio, but my dad does in his f150, and my mom did in her edge and currently does in her 328i bmw. all 3 of the cars sound like crap with satellite radio.

 

I found a speaker upgrade did a world of good to improve the sound quality of the shajer radio.

 

I changed all four speakers and that did help a lot, but the "satellite" sound is still not as clear like the FM or the IPod is.

 

I've had XM since 2003 and never had great satellite radio quality on either my add on radios or cars w/ it built-in except for my wife's current car, a '15 Yukon XL with the Bose audio. Since I have a base GT w/o siriusXM, I use the Sirius XM iPhone app and the sound is just like listening to an mp3.

 

Sirius sounds horrible in my car .. almost like AM Mono ... FM sounds MUCH better.

 

There was a free preview here in Canada in December and while I liked the selection, I agree, the sound quality seemed to range from FM-like all the way to "underwater" as has been described by the other posters, depending on the day.

As it is from a Satellite, maybe it has something to do with location? Anyway, I'm not impressed enough to pay for it.

 

I've spent maybe a total of 20 seconds listening to it. The sound quality is that bad. I'd rather listen to my iPod anyways.

 

I have found that Satellite radio is largely useless except for talk radio/sports stations. It sounds like garbage next to a USB stick loaded with music. It has to do with location and the amount of compression they use to transmit the signal.

 

its the compression they use. It is very low, not even CD quality.

 

Sirius target consumers are not audiophiles. If the could produce at least MP3 quality sound I would consider subscribing. But it's painful to listen to with the current sound quality.

 

XM sounds better than Sirius. I have an aftermarket Pioneer XM setup in my Firebird and my brother has a stock Bose with XM in his Audi S4 and they both sound better than the stock Sirius setup in my Mustang (Shaker Pro). Still not CD quality but noticeably better.

 

I've upgraded my DD (Focus) with infinity kappas, a JL Audio X400D amp, and JL Audio cleansweep processor hooked up to the stock HU. Mp3s sound great but Sirius still sounds like crap. Way overly compressed. I'm up for renewal in April, I'm strongly debating it. I like the variety of channels(although their individual playlists are about as limited as FM). Netflix would be a better use of the roughly $10/month I pay

 

the general audience does not care about quality, as long as they enjoy bobbing their head to it.

 

I have both Sirius and XM. They are using more compression than before since they merged and are expanding there channel line up. But still it should not sound like it is underwater. Have you had the dealer look at it?

 

Mine doesn't sound like it's under water. It sounds like something from a mediocre radio deck from the 80's though. Switching to USB or even FM is so much better. Location is a part of that, but the compression algorithms they use is largely to blame for it, no doubt.