SQ from DirecTV music...

kevhed72
kevhed72 Posts: 5,136
edited February 2010 in Electronics
I am at the point in building my system where I have started to scrutinize the source of my music, which has me considering a decent SACD player as the next upgrade. As far as sources go, I currently have DirecTV with all the music channels in 800s. Question for all you who run this source via coax to your system: On a scale of 1 - 10 (on average), where would you place the sound quality of this source for these music channels? Thanks...
Post edited by kevhed72 on
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  • adam2434
    adam2434 Posts: 995
    edited February 2010
    Does DirecTV use Music Choice for the music channels?

    Time Warner Cable uses Music Choice, which uses Dolby Digital at 128-192 kbps, so it's a heavily compressed format (think MP3). I would rank it fairly low for serious listening, well under CD quality, but OK for casual background music.

    Not sure if this is relevant to your question, since I don't know DirectTV's music program/bitrate.
    5.1 and 2.0 ch Basement Media Room: Outlaw 975/Emotiva DC-1/Rotel RB-1582 MKII/Rotel RB-1552/Audiosource Amp 3/Polk LS90, CS400i, FX500i/Outlaw X-12, LFM-1/JVD DLA-HD250/Da-Lite 100" HCCV/Sony ES BDP/Sonos Connect. DC-1/RB-1582 MKII/Sonos Connect also feed Polk 7C in garage or Dayton IO655 on patio.
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  • esowden
    esowden Posts: 55
    edited February 2010
    I have Dish Network which has 3 different Music providers one of which is Sirius. When compared to the quality(?) of my XM Ready receiver - other than eq - I can't tell a difference. They're all bad... I'm guessing the bitrate is somewhere in the 96-128 range which is fine for low volume, background noise type listening. With a decent stereo system the lack of quality is very apparent.
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  • Ern Dog
    Ern Dog Posts: 2,237
    edited February 2010
    I get Direct Tv via satellite and I would rate the SQ range to be 4-6. There is some big differences between the different music channels. I use a quality RCA IC from the Directv reciever and my preamp which helps.
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  • mantis
    mantis Posts: 17,325
    edited February 2010
    I don't like Cable music Dish music or any other form of compressed audio. It's fine if I want to send it all over my house for background music like if we have a party or something like that. I really don't use it at all. I have a full Itunes Lossless library I built over the years with buying cd's and ripping them in lossless and use my Apple Tv as the media server. For serious listening SACD and DVD AUDIO I use a Pioneer ELite Dv58avi which is very good over HDMI.
    If you are looking for a SACD and DVD audio player I might move mine. Pm me if you like.
    Dan
    My personal quest is to save to world of bad audio, one thread at a time.
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