Audio quality dropped on CBC Radio One (XM 169)?

I can't speak to Sirius hardware - I only listen on an XM radio. But it sounds like (as of a day or two ago?) that the audio quality on CBC has dropped significantly. I don't hear any highs anymore - and I have to turn up the volume to hear anything, really. I can tell it's definitely not a 4 kb AMBE(R) channel like Canada 360/AMI-Audio, but have they maybe cut it to 8 kb or 12 kb? The audio quality has not changed on ici Premiere XM 170, nor on any other Canadian services I'm aware of. I'm wondering if this was a result of adding the Streisand channel?

Does anyone else listen to CBC R1 on XM and can comment?

I have noticed the same downgrade in quality and I have an XM radio. The sound quality sounds more like a 16k stream.

All my CBC channels on XM are mono.

It isn't the fact that the CBC feeds are in mono as much as the bit rate for CBC R. 1 may have been lowered. Since May I have a Delphi XM2go radio (found at a flea market for $3) , and have enjoyed what I have heard. While I don't speak French, I have also enjoyed the Radio-Canada/ICI services, especially "Chansons," and "Franco-Country."

Thanks everyone for confirming. I enjoy the CBC Sonica music channel as well. For whatever reason, shortly after CBC Radio 3 was added to XM, it seems like it had a cutback in staff and started to play more obscure music, and I don't enjoy it as much anymore. Sonica is a good blend of both popular and lesser known Canadian artists (and they do sprinkle in some others; I think they use the 15% non-CanCon to their advantage). If the CanCon rules allowed, it would be nice to have CBC 2 on satellite, or at least the drive time shows. I even think the merged Canada360/AMI-audio channel isn't bad, and certainly performs a great public service. I wonder why SXM USA doesn't market that a bit more - it is the only nationwide (and in fact, North America wide) radio reading service, even if it's 4kb. It's available virtually everywhere and doesn't rely on special radios not available in stores, such as subcarrier or HD radio.

I've noticed that all the CBC channels sound like muddy mono, they also cut stereo from Radio Disney and the kiddie channels to mono, as well as mono on CH5 - I hope these are only temporary. On the Sirius side, Radio Disney and CH5 are in stereo, but other channels, like 32 sound so 'swirly' that platform motion on AM sounds better than Sirius 'enhanced' stereo.

Seems like CBC 1's "normal" audio has returned, it's not knocked down to near-AM-radio anymore. The other Canadian channels sound about the same to me, on XM. Another board explained that XM needs more bandwidth for sports during September each year due to MLB commitments. I think years ago (before the big bad Sirius takeover) XM used to only steal bandwidth from other channels when absolutely needed, but I think Sirius prefers to simply set things up, leave them that way for the month, then change them back. Sirius doesn't understand how flexible the XM technology is; oh well.

One of the reasons I don't subscribe anymore. I'm not an audio purist but their audio just sounds so bad, it grates on me. Instead of it getting better it only seems to get worse.