StevethePilot

Can anyone tell me where specifically the Sirius antenna is, and if it can be upgraded/replaced/moved to improve reception? I mean honestly, I was driving under some single lane overpasses and getting dropout about five times longer than I was under concrete. It's friggin' ridiculous and I'd like to see about fixing the problem! (Googling the problem found a solution on Yahoo! that included fixes for aftermarket head units and aftermarket FM transmit units, and that said if it was a factory head unit you were out of luck. I don't believe that with this group's wisdom at my disposal!)

STP

oknish

I am not sure where the antenna is but would love to know the solution as well. I lose signal driving under trees. No kidding.

StevethePilot

I feel your pain - I've lost signal driving next to a city bus. Like you, no kidding.

85mm

As much as I enjoy our truck, I haven't been as impressed with some of the electronic goodies especially compared to my civic hybrid. I also lose sat radio signals passing under trees. I'm not talking about tree lined streets. Even on wide open San Francisco streets with a couple large trees on one side, it fades out. Civic XM radio worked fine except in tunnels and deep garages. I stopped using the ipod integration kit because the sound quality is much worse than cd's or sat radio (when I have a signal). The nav is slow and clumsy to operate. Rear seat entertainment is tough to operate if your rear passegers are toddlers.

No car is perfect though. I love the front and rear parking sensors and rear veiw camera. Love the MB cruise control controls. I will always pay extra for illuminated door sills from now on. Who knew such a little feature could give so much pleasure : )

jpeardm

Yeah, the Sirius reception is probably my only legitimate gripe with the GL. Everyday on my ****y commute home I finally get on to some nice relaxing backroads for the final 5 miles and then I lose reception in the same 10 or 15 spots along the way, no bridges, just trees. I end up using my iPod or FM. Seems like a lot of people with the same reception problem so yeah Steve must be the antenna so maybe we can figure out something here.

Wigwam

I have only noticed a drop of a second or two when going under a large overpass, like a 6 lane freeway; otherwise I've had no issues with sat reception.

Regarding the iPod sound quality, I played with the EQ settings on the iPod itself and found that the sound quality can be improved greatly if the EQ setting is on Loudness. Before I found this EQ setting the quality was horrible, now it is acceptable...

Nevada Jack

I think the SAT antenna is in the small overhang that is over the rear trunk door. I get some dropouts when I pass a transformer complex or when going under a long underpass. But not really a problem...it will work in the parking garage if I stay near the perimeter. Do not find it a problem here in the desert area or during my trip from Denver.

I plugged in my iPod mini yesterday and I thought the quality was pretty good. I have a tin ear though...:-)

jpeardm

Nevada maybe you have a tin ear but you've got a body of steel and I'm sure a heart of gold

Nevada Jack

Thanks for that nice post jp...

oknish

You know, jp, sometimes an image is worth a thousand words

Jack - how much you paying him? I will do it for cheaper

Jokes aside, Jack for President.

oknish

Thanks, WigWam. I will try that EQ today.

abcdef

I agree that the GL sat radio is very disappointing. We decided not to continue the subscription after the initial free six months because of the frequent reception drops, etc. The ipod sound quality is also not very good. My aftermarket Dension ipod connection on my bmw is much better than the Mercedes unit.

MJH

My 2 cents...I had XM Radio in our last vehicle and never had the number of dropped signal events I experience with Sirius. Even in my "home territory" traveled daily, the increased number of events is really annoying and noticable. So I too hope the Forums braintrust can solve this one

lkchris

I'd bet instead it's under the rear portion of the black plastic roof panel. Hard to see the antenna working through the metal you suggest.

Has to be pretty far rearward to be compatible with the roof luggage boxes Mercedes offers as accessories, I'd think.

It's also a "triband" antenna, as it does cell phone and navigation gps, too.

StevethePilot

I, too, am an XM refugee. I can sometimes pick up XM inside the lower floors of a parking structure (almost always if I'm near the outside edges). Sirius dies in my own garage, though if I sit for a minute with the key on/engine off (taking off the sunglasses), it'll sometimes break through in bursts.

Maybe the fact that it's tri-band and taking care of GPS and cell phone as well puts it at a disadvantage. Wait, what cell phone does it do? Not bluetooth! Are we talking the wrench, info and SOS buttons?

This is madness. (Softball underhanded joke setup, waiting for reply.)

lkchris

Surely you understand that in some cities XM and Sirius have "terrestrial" broadcast capability? That is, same as FM or AM radio?

This would explain it working in a parking garage.

The Sirius antenna on your GL is designed to receive both signals.

The cell phone the antenna does is when you install your whatever in the cradle, i.e. not Bluetooth adapter. I'm using our old V60. And, yes, tele aid.

BeanCounter

I too am very disappointed in the Sirius system and the overall sound quality of the stereo in general. As I have posted before my wife's sound system in her Honda Odyssey is every bit as good or better then the GL's sound system. I also agree that the Ipod sound quality is marginal. Regarding Sirius, I lose reception in about three locations on my way home. I guess the reception in the northwest part of town (Jack's area) is better then the reception in the southwest part of town where I live. To add insult to injury, the Sirius renewal costs are about twice what they were for my wife's XM renewal (she got it for $77 for a year). I asked the Sirius rep what gives and was basically told "take it or leave it". I think I am choosing to leave it.

MKW

In my current experience, Sirius has inferior sound quality and drops out a lot more vs XM, esp after XM's recent fidelity upgrade which really enhanced low frequencies and soundstage . Neither sound as good as a clear FM signal, but XM is getting close . Sirius as usual,still sounds tinny. There are lots of boards that go into the technical , satellite ,repeater aspects of why there is a performance and reception difference between XM and Sirius , content totally aside.
Of course, once the Sirius takeover of XM is completed, those of us who enjoy the choices we now have with satellite programming on our long drives to our weekend homes will have to settle for higher subscription prices, even tinnier more compressed dynamics , and 100 channels of Casey Kasem top-forty style clones and clowns , i.e., current sorry state of " free" FM radio .

gordongl450

Hi Everyone,

You know I always chuckle when the forum gets into the discussion of the poor sound quality of satellite radio and the iPOD integration. My question is poor sound quality compared to what? Another car, at home, what?

All of these formats are so digitized and so compressed it's ridiculous. I am an audiophile and was engrossed in the literature when CD's were first introduced and the sampling rate of 44.1kHz was feared to be way to low!! Now when you add MPEG compression of any type, your file size is so small it looses quality. It can't be at "CD Quality" as Apple likes to state. Then add the fact that you are listening on a car audio system and you are not going to have great sound.

Listen to quality audio at home with your CD"s. Be happy you have so many choices of music in your car for entertainment.

Our kids, the MPEG generation, will never understand quality audio, because it is all about convenience now, which mean small file sizes.

Remember the days of an analog dial AM/FM radio in the center of the dash with a 5 by 9 inch oval speaker on the top of the dash. I do. I am amazed and satisfied with what the engineers have managed to put into the GL for entertainment, AM/FM radio, iPOD, satelite radio, DVD players, 6 CD changer, game ports!

My 2 cents.

Gordon

Nevada Jack

Excellent post gordo and I remember those cars when only AM was available...:-)

The "tin ear" thinks this sound is pretty terrific...

MKW

My home reference system won't allow any digital source -only LPs . A true audiophile enjoys the palpable " air " between and surrounding each performer, especially on the classical LPs mastered in the 50s and 60s , which are now very expensive as you know , that no digital source can ever come close to reproducing.People are floored when I play these for them.

gordongl450

MKW,

I agree with you to some degree. Be careful using the terminology "true audiophile."

We don't want to get into the "Golden Ears" arguments where guys say they can hear the difference between different interconnects in the system, which is bulls__t as we know.

There are still good and bad things about great analog systems.

Personally I really enjoy my system with SACD disks. I great format that never got a large following. I consider that audiophile digital quality.

Gordon

oknish

Excellent point, Gordon. My guess is that most folks refer to volume level from iPod when they mention sound quality. I know I have to crank the volume up when listening to iPod and if I switch to CD or SAT, I go deaf since they come on so loud. And, yes, while an auto sound system is not a place to really listen to music, my gripe is that we should at least get same fidelity regardless of source. Hope that makes sense

My 4 (almost 5) year old has mastered how to work CDs/DVDs in laptops and various players. I think if showed him an LP and asked him to play it, he would break it trying to fit it in a DVD drive. Price of progress, I guess.

85mm

I've been comparing sound quality to the cd player playing the same tracks as the ipod. I know there are audiophile nuts out there. I'm not one but I know when something doesn't sound good enough.

I played with various ipod settings when I first got it. Pop and rap songs just don't have as much punch. I'll try loudness next. In my civic I use the headphone jack on the ipod and connect it to the auxilary plug in the civic and notice no difference in sound quality compared to cd's and the pc card slot.

gordongl450

oknish,

I was following your line of thought about audio in a car until you said "we should at least get same (did you mean some) fidelity regardless of source."

Define what you mean by fidelity. Do mean equal quality and representation of all relevant frequenices in the music, close to the orginal event, that is high fidelity recording and play back.

Or did you simply mean equal dynamic range or volume as you switch between sources. I agree with that, I have to turn up the volume on the iPOD to match the volume of the rest of the sources. That's a dynamic range matching problem since the iPOD has it's own internal volume control and recording adjustments. I have differnent volumes between songs on the same playlist.

In any event, my basic point is high fidelity discussions are difficult with car audio and severe digital compression formats are not in the realm of high fidelity.

Gordon