Similar to your experience with Sirius, I discovered with XM that a moderately priced DAC make a big difference in the sound quality. Having said that I think that you will find significant additional sound quality improvements hard to come by as the quality of the satellite signal becomes limiting. I did find that one moderately priced DAC (the Channel Island DAC-1) was a better match than another (the Aragon D2A2) but beyond an admittedly subjective matching I didn't find much sonic improvement no matter which DAC I tried.
Re-discovered Satellite Radio..
About a year ago, I had purchased Sirius SR-H550 home tuner and 3 year Satellite subscription. It sat there for a year, because I did not like the sound from it.
Recently, I was re-arranging my audio gear and connected the output of SR-H550 to the Apogee Mini-dac via optical cable.
Boy what a difference!
I love it, fount a station that plays my kind of music(Channel 4 Easy listening). Now I am listening to the Satellite at home all the time.
Granted, it is not CD, but it is clean and warm(Thanks to Apogee mini-dac to Balanced out to Mark Levinson).
Now my search has begun for a real DAC with balance out. Any suggestions?
Thanks
Recently, I was re-arranging my audio gear and connected the output of SR-H550 to the Apogee Mini-dac via optical cable.
Boy what a difference!
I love it, fount a station that plays my kind of music(Channel 4 Easy listening). Now I am listening to the Satellite at home all the time.
Granted, it is not CD, but it is clean and warm(Thanks to Apogee mini-dac to Balanced out to Mark Levinson).
Now my search has begun for a real DAC with balance out. Any suggestions?
Thanks