Lousy Sirius receiver

[dmspen]

I have a 2012 Focus EV. I received a 6 month free Sirius subscription. I also have a 2010 Honda Odyssey with an XM radio.

The XM radio in the Odyssey sounds fantastic. The same channels in the Focus/Sirius sound mushy and garbled.

Anyone have issues with their Sirius? Anyone know what receiver is in the car and if its capable of being upgraded?

BTW, after my 6 month freebie was up I called to cancel telling them the reason (poor receiver, garbled, etc). A week after I quit, I received an offer for music only for $84/year.

 

[davideos]

I have SIRIUS with my 2012 Focus and I think it sounds quite good; no complaints. If anything sounds amiss, I'd have to say it was the bluetooth streaming; which to me, sounds muddy compared to when the same music is playing on SIRIUS. However, everyone has different expectations and music that they play. I did play with the audio settings a bit. I moved the fader a little toward the rear seats and have the tone / bass pretty much at center...maybe a notch of bass added.

 

[michael]

I have to agree with davidos. I've been very happy with the Sirius receiver, use it all the time. Only problem is rare LOS when passing under bridges and the like.

 

[Gigi]

Anyone have issues with their Sirius?

I am not satisfied with the Sirius in either my FFElectric or my FFEnergi. With both, I hear high pitched distortion and noise that comes from extreme compression of the audio stream. I understand that Sirius has opted for higher compression and more channels versus fewer channels with better audio quality. From what I gather, they stream music at only 39kbs and talk at 16kbs. It is not possible to carry the full spectrum of music frequencies at that rate without introducing distortion and annoying noise. The audio stream I get via Bluetooth from Pandora and TuneIn Radio is so much better there is really no comparison.

I heard from a Ford tech recently that there is an app coming that will control Pandora via MFT. I am anxiously awaiting its appearance.

 

[jmueller065]

I heard from a Ford tech recently that there is an app coming that will control Pandora via MFT. I am anxiously awaiting its appearance.

Not an app: There is an update to MFT coming that will enable applink in MFT.
I detailed this in the following thread:
http://www.myfocuselectric.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1730

What it means is that: not just Pandora, but all the applink enabled smartphone apps (including the Sirius app, MLB app, etc.) will be able to be controlled via Sync (e.g. voice).

Note that cars with Sync V1 (e.g. have Sync without MFT) already have applink!

 

[az erik]

I heard from a Ford tech recently that there is an app coming that will control Pandora via MFT. I am anxiously awaiting its appearance.

Not an app: There is an update to MFT coming that will enable applink in MFT.
I detailed this in the following thread:
http://www.myfocuselectric.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1730

What it means is that: not just Pandora, but all the applink enabled smartphone apps (including the Sirius app, MLB app, etc.) will be able to be controlled via Sync (e.g. voice).

Note that cars with Sync V1 (e.g. have Sync without MFT) already have applink!

Happy about this!

I too am not impressed with the Sirus tuner. It seems that the stream quality in my area (or my car) is half that i used to get from XM. XM broadcast previously at 64k or 92k never near 128k. Most mp3's are now 192k or better so you can hear the flatening of the audio in Serious in order to cut back on the bandwidth needed. Not sure why they still push out at such a low data rate, we've only had 15 years or so to improve on Sat radio, heck I only listen to HD radio and even it sounds more muted in the MFT.

 

[davideos]

Perhaps I'm not as much as an audiophile as others might be, but my Sirius and HD radio sound great to me. I think the bluetooth audio sounds flat and muffled, but Sirius sounds very clear with lots of depth...for lack of a better way to describe it. Any way to compare your experience with another FFE? I just need to know if I should get my ears checked