Does anyone listen to XM radio through their HT sound system? I love to listen to it in the car and wonder how it would sound going through my M60's at home.
The only reason I have not bought a new receiver yet is that I like the idea and would probably use my system a lot more. Problem is "XM ready" means no Outlaw or Emotiva separates for me so I am agonizing over it. Any input?

I've looked into it several times since sat radio's inception, but never tried it. My understanding is that the SQ has diminished to the point of being unlistenable on something like axioms. A poster on HTF recently refered to it as "AM without the static". I like the idea of xm, but fear they've ruined it for people like us. Another potential pitfall is the proposed merger and potential future changes in reciever compatability.
I would get the pre-pro or reciever you like based on anything but sat radio. You can always add an outboard unit like the polk later.

Much appreciated duckman, thanks!

Duckman got it right.

Sound quality has gone so far downhill that I discontinued my subscriptions and sold the equipment.

I can no longer recommend it to anyone but the "my MP3s sound incredible on my Bose or Boombox crowd". The variety, as you know, is tempting.... but the sound quality made it completely unlistenable on my 60s.

Yeah, I agree too. I used to have XM in my car, but I had a car deck that allowed for satellite radio compression compensation, so basically, it expands the highs and lows to make it sound better, and not like AM radio. Without that, it sounds so dull. It is just the mid range, and nothing else. I also found that I tired of the programming, so it moved to our newer minivan (that my wife drives mostly) when our free Sirius Radio subscription ran out. She doesn't notice the blah sound as much, and the kids don't care as long as they have their Disney radio...

I'm in agreement with the crowd as well.

I incorporated XM into our home system via a Polk Audio XRt12 Tuner, was disappointed with the sound from jumpstreet and unincorporated it out of the system within a day ... we have a couple of el cheapo Polk Audio speakers connected to a separate system for the pool area (my next Axiom upgrade!) and it sounds OK for that, but if one is considering the XM for their decent home system I surly wouldn't recommend it.

Thanks everyone, that sealed it for me. I am going to order the Outlaw 1070 or their combo of the 970/7075/LFM-2 sub and leave the XM in the car.

Wow, I'm going to go against the grain here and admit that for me XM is still fine. I've had XM since 2003.

I have a couple of XM subscriptions on portable players that I use in the cars, home, and office, and get most of Sirius piped in via Dish Network at home. I listen to both on my setup. I listen to XM all day long at work, and frequently on trips. Can't live without it.

It strongly depends on the channel and the content. I've heard content on both services that sounds like a 32kb MP3. Awful. I've also heard content that sounds quite good, perhaps that of 128kb or 192kb MP3's. That is to say, not SACD quality but perfectly sufficient.

SQ also depends on the equipment, as some of the newer receivers use different/newer codecs and will sound better. It also depends on what day of the week it is. If you follow the discussions over on XMFanclub.com, you will see constant threads about sound quality. It seems that (XM at least) tinkers with the compression all the time, and this becomes noticable from time to time.

For me, I mainly stick to classical and jazz, which seem to not suffer some of the compression problems of other channels. I think they sound fine. Yes, I can hear the compression, but it's certainly sufficient for the car, and good enough for casual listening at home. No, I'm not going to demo my M80's with it, but it's fine for what it is.

XM Pops and Fine Tuning are two stations that (I have read) XM allocates plenty of bandwidth to, and it shows. They usually sound great.

Back to the OP. The only thing that 'XM Ready' gets you is the channel display on your receiver or TV screen, and possibly the receiver doing the decoding. The point is, I use my XM MyFi at home on my non-XM Ready stereo via the home dock and plain old RCA cables, and it works just fine. I doubt you would get a sound quality difference in using an 'XM Ready' tuner.

Keep on truckin' with that 970 combo. Congrats on that. That $1298 package is a heck of a sweet deal. Let us know what you think of it.

I tend to agree with Peter here. I use XM for 2 autos and casual listening (backgound music) at home. Works fine for those purposes for me.

Thanks Bug and Peter for the other side of the issue. I listen to a lot of blues and sometimes XM does play some good stuff. I may experiment a little once I get all set up with my system. I'm glad I didn't spend the $1300 on a Marantz just because it had XM radio on it.

Peter it's not the programming I have an issue with, it's the sound quality on our home system. I have two subscriptions, one for the pool area system (Polk Audio XRt12) with the little cheapo speakers and the other for my vehicle's stock radio ... which for these applications XM is perfectly fine.