Recording XM/Sirius Live broadcasts


I was lucky enough to catch the start of Ann Hampton Callaway at Dizzy's last night on XM/Sirius. I get the feed through my Direct TV connection. I missed the start but recorded the bulk of the concert on my Crown CX844. This was not a live recording but a broadcast of a taped concert. My recording was really good as the signal is processed through my dac. The sound quality was better than the best cd's and vinyl.

The concert is being rebroadcast on Sunday and there is a Live at Lincoln Center concert tonight that I will tape. I use quantegy GP9 which works great on my RTR's.

Seems like Sirius on Direct TV upgraded their signal since the capital infusion took place. For a while there the sound quality suffered but now I think I will start recording these concerts. Live music is the best and when captured on a good RTR there's nothing better.
wavetrader
Mumbles,

Glad you liked it. I looked at my Hughes receiver and felt that it would not be worth it to upgrade.

I use my tube dac and the sound is very good.

As far as I can tell XM will start to produce "live" concerts towards the end of May.

I was thinking of subscribing to Sirius directly for the opera broadcasts but I haven't heard of any feedback on the quality.

I do like the Wynton Marsalis broadcasts very much.

recording these is way cool as they seem to sound even better. Now if the price of tape would drop and quantegy got back in business that would be great indeed.

Any RTR users out there that are recording these broadcasts? Just wondering.
Im so sorry for hijacking your thread Wavetrader, completely missed the RTR context, thought you were talking about dvr recording.
Man, that's quite a system you have there, no less than 4 real to reals?
I had a Teac many,,many years ago, yours look like professional studio recorders. Imagine demand for tape is low so price is high.
I can understand how upsampling an XM broadcast thru a DAC could help sound, but how does RTR playback improve on sound?
"I can understand how upsampling an XM broadcast thru a DAC could help sound, but how does RTR playback improve on sound?"

Good question...some say the larger bandwith that tape provides. I just like the subtle coloration that my RTR's impart on the recording. The Crowns are closer to neutral than my Ampex and of course the tube Ampexs are known for that phatt tube sound.

This new Crown I have has been recapped so it will be interesting when recording the XM live brodcasts in May,to see how it performs. Anyway with those big meters and reels going,who cares...lol.