How to disable Sirius XM?

I've seen a guy online who is in the audio business and he basically says if you don't spend at least $200K building a proper listening room you're never going to hear great sound. The ceiling needs to be exactly 14 feet high, the rest of the room dimensions have to be proportionate, you use certain materials in the subfloor, custom built room acoustic treatments, etc. And then you can start assembling the audio equipment.

 

That's funny.

But seriously, I just seem to be sensitive to compressed digital audio formats. They lose spatial characteristics and just sound flat and lifeless to me with no soundstage.

I guess in a car you are already dealing with a compromised listening environment. Why make it worse with a degraded source format?

 

But the acoustic environment has to matter. If you're in a tin can and crank up the volume you're just hearing echoes rattling off the walls because all music frequencies don't travel at the same speed. It might be OK to simulate being in the second row at a rock concert but it's not going to be a decent substitute for the sound in a symphony concert hall.

 

Call me old actually I am retired but all this talk about what app is better who has the best sound reminds me. Having the stereo off and listening to my 4Runner as I go is music to my ears.

 

Oh, it definitely matters and I'm not saying it's insignificant but it's a continuum. I don't need a concert hall and a hundred grand worth of equipment to enjoy music, I just think compressed digital audio formats generally limit my enjoyment of music, especially when I know what the base recording is supposed to sound like.

 

Fair enough. I'm a lot more critical listening to classical music because I know what unamplified music sounds like live in a concert hall. My range of tolerance for rock music is wider and it's good in a car because it usually has much less dynamic range, maybe in part due to compression in the recording process.

 

I used Tidal for 3 years for hifi streaming primarily for my home system. They have a great catalogue of hu rea music, but there are a couple things that I never liked, and one thing that got me to recently switch to Qobuz.

First, the recommended music and recent releases they push at you are in no way based on your listening preferences. You will constantly see hip hop type music pushed on you on your home screen, even if you only listen to classic rock or jazz most of the time. Not a deal breaker, I lived with it for years.

6 months ago, without warning Tidal pushed an update that required subscribers to create a public user profile in order to access their saved music and favorites. Yes, they allow you to make your playlist etc. Private, but there was no way to bypass setting up this public profile, or to refuse the TOS. So I was instantly blocked out from my 3+ years of music catalogue. Mind you I had been paying 32 bucks a month for those 3 years. When customer support failed to offer a solution without making the profile, I switched to Qobuz. Maybe that doesn't matter to you, especially as a new customer, but for me, I was paying a lot of money for a long time for a subscription service, not a social media account. So far I have enjoyed Qobuz just as much as I enjoyed Tidal, and for less money.

End of the day, if you have a device that can actually decode the hi res files to begin with, you will experience exceptional sonic reproduction with either one. If you don't know what I mean about a decide that can decode the files, make sure to read up about it before investing. This also assumes you are not using Bluetooth to connect your streaming device to your listening device, because again you'll just be downgrading the sound quality.

 

I just sold my last car to somebody like you. I started pointing to the audio controls and how you load CDs in the 6 disc changer, and he said when he goes on long trips his wife usually sleeps and he prefers driving with the radio off.

 

What's a CD? My 2023 has no CD slot.

 

Ohh.. Other than the basic JBL in 4runner I'm expecting relatively good sound at home I'm mostly using my poor mans Mickie mixer and Shure in-ear monitors. Mixer says 24bit High resolution recording with sample rates 192kHz to Mac/ PC via USB. Hope I can survive with that for some time?


My home theater is taken over my Mrs and kid for movies. So not much music there

 

Don't get me wrong I'm old school but also a retired auto mechanic and well versed in auto electronics. My party days are over but driving with the stereo off keeps me in full tune with the heartbeat of my 4Runner. Can't hear what's going on if you drown it out a stereo.

 

just a bitrate comparison, brother. I digitized my CD collection a long, long time ago.

 

Thank you!... will give this a try.

 

What was the question?

 

I was going to make a separate thread but it seems this would go well here. I just got a 2021 4Runner Limited in January. I have the JBL Sound System with Sub. I read in the forums that a lot of people did not like the sound in their 4runners. I play most of my music from my phone with a mix of MP3s and CD-quality files. You can really tell the difference between the two. Is there any way to download an EQ onto the system? Just having bass-mid-treble adjustments is lacking in my opinion. My wife's BMW has multiple bands of eq adjustment and you can really dial in the sound. I play drums and have for over 30+ years. I have lost some of my high-end sounds, so it is nice to be able to compensate for this.

 

You were right the first time - you need a separate thread.

 

Since this thread has meandered a bit, a sort-of related question: If you disable the DCM to disconnect from the Toyota Mother Ship, does Sirius XM still work?

 

I’m not an XM subscriber but I have disabled the DCM, and if I set the source to XM the radio plays the XM Preview. If that’s too uncertain you could pull the DCM fuse and see what happens.

 

Makes sense. Thanks.

 

They keep giving me the $5 a month deal so I keep it around.