After a long debate with myself I finally decided to have XM or Sirius satelite radio installed in my car. When I arrived at Sound Advice in Boca Raton I was informed that because of an on going battle between Alpine and XM, Alpine is no longer manufacturing XM receivers and antenas. So I had them install a top of the line Sirius ready Kenwood head unit and Sirius Receiver in my car. After 10 days of use I noticed that 60% or more of the stations sounded like they were broadcasted through a "tin can", very poor sound quality. My friend Jason had the exact same system installed in his 996 a day after me and had the same problem. After talking to a few people I found out that XM radio not only has satelites in the air, but they also have towers on the ground boosting the signal strength for better quality. Sirius does not.
Sound Advice called the Sirius rep in our area and set up an appointment with him. The rep shows up an hour late and trys fitting different antennas and receivers in my car and was unable to correct the problem. The only option wqas to rip all the equipment out and go back to stock. What a waste of two days So now its back to the drawing board to find a decent XM receiver that is not Alpine Does anyone have suggestions? I am going to look today.
The moral of the story is dont waste your time with Sirius even thought they have no commercials and better programming the sound quality bites

 

Jeru, next time you won't be so stubborn!!

 

Unfortunately I cannot say that I have the same problem. I have had Sirius in my car for almost a year now and never experienced a tin can sound. I also had the pleasure of installing both Sirius and XM onto cars that I drive and I still would prefer Sirius over XM. With the XM, I contstantly find myself going into black out areas, whereas Sirius had no problems. Sound quality and overall music quality are much better with Sirius in my area.

This is my layout of the stereo system though so maybe there is more of an affect of sound quality through the stereo system?

 

I have sirius and love it....The only stations that have somewhat poor quality are the talk stations..but the music stations are amazing I think..they are broadcasted in 3D digital sound..I have heard Xm and trust me there is a reason that AUdi Mercedes, bmw, aston martin, ford among others have partnered with SIRIUS. XM is JUNK!!!! Plus I have a large holding in Sirius so Im partially bias..

 

Doesn't GM have a stake in XM ? Maybe that's why the Germans and Ford ( Jag/Volvo /Aston ) are going with Sirius.

 

FWIW, the Pioneer Premier head unit is XM compatible and also has excellent quality. Installed one in my '00 C-2. Reasonably priced as well. I have XM in my '02 Turbo and only installed the XM receiver which plugged into the aux on the back of the Becker. Sound quality is the same as the Bose OEM unit.

 

Does it display the name of the song and artist on the becker?
Which model becker the 220?

Also where did you guys mount your antenna? Mine was inside the car in the back window. And I have window tint.

 

Does the tint have a metallic film embedded? That could be the source of your problems.

Some "high performance" window tints contain a metallic film as part of their solar radiation rejection strategy. The metallic film has the side effect of acting like a "high performance" radio wave shield as well. It's like trying to receive radio (microwave) signals through a garbage can lid

If the back window is acting as a shield, then only the non-tinted windows will allow any signal to pass (roof is metal in a coupe, too). You'll get lots of multipath fading if there is no line-of-sight path open to the satellite. Multipath fading makes most signals really crappy to decode cleanly. If it sounds like a cell phone instead of a good stereo, multipath distortion is a likely culprit.

To find out if the tint has a metallic film, you'll have to ask the tint manufacturer.