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XM breaks the audio barrier: XM and Neural Audio Achieve Audio Breakthrough With Radi (1 Viewer)

Ronald Epstein

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XM Satellite Radio and Neural Audio Achieve Audio Breakthrough With Radio's First 24-Hour Channels in 5.1 Surround Sound

Denon, Onkyo, Pioneer, and Yamaha to Introduce Home Audio Systems That Play Select XM Music Channels and Programs in XM HD Surround Powered by Neural Audio

12/28/2005 1:42:33 PM



WASHINGTON, Dec 28, 2005 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX/ -- XM Satellite Radio, the nation's leading satellite radio company, will broadcast select XM music channels in 5.1 Surround Sound, marking the first time that a radio company has broadcast in 5.1 Surround Sound twenty-four hours a day.


The audio breakthrough was announced today by XM and Neural Audio Corporation, a leading provider of digital signal processing and surround sound technology for the broadcast industry, in advance of the 2006 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES). The new offering of 5.1 Surround on XM is called XM HD Surround, which provides content with six discrete channels of digital full fidelity audio powered by Neural Audio technology.

Beginning in March 2006, XM will broadcast the free-form music channel Fine Tuning (XM Channel 76) and the classical pops music channel XM Pops (XM Channel 113) in XM HD Surround. XM will also broadcast a variety of special shows and live music performances at the XM studios in XM HD Surround.

XM manufacturing partners such as Denon, Onkyo, Pioneer Electronics (USA) Inc., and Yamaha will introduce home audio systems capable of playing XM HD Surround powered by Neural Audio in 2006.

XM will demonstrate XM HD Surround broadcasts at the 2006 CES January 5-8 in the XM booth #4606 in the North Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center.

"XM is the first radio company -- satellite or terrestrial -- to broadcast 5.1 Surround Sound on the radio 24 hours a day," said Hugh Panero, XM President and CEO. "Terrestrial radio stations are just starting to convert from analog to digital. XM has been broadcasting in digital format since the day we launched in 2001, and now we are taking another leap forward with the introduction of 5.1 Surround in partnership with Neural Audio. XM HD Surround is the latest example of the technological edge that has made XM the number- one satellite radio company.

"XM was the first company to offer satellite radio, the first to introduce satellite radios for the car and home, and the first to offer portable, live satellite radios. Now we're the first to offer radio channels in 5.1 Surround every minute of every day. We have an outstanding partnership with Neural Audio, which shares the same passion for high-quality sound that we have at XM," Panero added.

"XM HD Surround is setting the bar at a new level with surround sound that enriches the listener's experience with full envelopment and image detail never before available in traditional broadcast," said Geir R. Skaaden, Neural Audio CEO. "We are excited to partner with XM to provide the largest source of 5.1 original music content of any medium today."

Home audio systems enabled with Neural Surround will deliver the full surround experience of XM HD Surround. These broadcasts can also be heard on any existing mono, stereo, or matrix style receiver.
 

mylan

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Sounds great, it just makes every high dollar XM ready receiver obsolete though,not to mention the $1,550 !!!!! XM tuner from Elan you just announced.
 

Ronald Epstein

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Yes, unfortunately that seems to be the case --
including the Polk XRT12 I spent $200 for.

I'll upgrade my equipment if/as additional
HD music programming channels are made available.
 

Ronn.W

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That's great news. I'll look forward to seeing what new equipment comes out to support this. Does anyone know if that optical output mod would deliver 5.1 from a current XM radio?

Sirius hires Stern to attract new customers, XM changes sattelite radio with new technology to attract new customers. Gotta love it.
 

mylan

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Ron, over on another thread, you were saying XM sounded anywhere from MP3 quality to near CD depending on weather or not it was hardwired and because of compression from XM.
This makes me wonder how good 5.1 channels is going to sound through all that compression anyway.
 

Dick Knisely

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Mylan -- if they allocate the bandwidth it will sound fine. If they don't it will defeat the purpose of doing it since it will end up sounding worse. My concern is that they will give it the bandwidth but it has to come from somewhere so I wonder which channels will suffer. Seems strange they're doing this right now without having any (or at least many) receivers on the market to use it.

It may attract a few new subscribers but I'm personally skeptical that this will be a major "draw".
 

TheLongshot

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Jason


It is a pre-CES announcement, so I expect it to be something that they will be showing off there and that various news outlets will be writing about it.

Strange that Cinemagic isn't going to be one of the channels. That seemed to be the most obvious choice to me. I also wonder how much of Fine Tuning's content will be in surround.

Jason
 

MikeNg

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I'm pretty skeptical about the actual quality of this 'HD' broadcast, as the current XM channels don't sound anywhere close to CD quality. Not where I am anyway. The pie ain't getting any bigger, so as Ronald stated, the additional bandwidth will have to come from somewhere.
 

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