Anyone Using XM or Sirius On Their System?

Another alternative is Music Choice on digital cable (Time Warner for me). No commercials and the sound is quite good.

I have a Polk XM tuner routed through a Benchmark DAC-1. Sound is much better than FM. More detail, better sondstage; still not at CD levels, but a huge imporvement in sound and no commericals. However, just like FM where some station formats (Classical, Jazz) are less compressed than let's say Easy Listening & rock, the same holds true for satelite.

I'm using the Polk XM unit and it's great for finding new music or for back ground tunes it's nice. For critical listening, well it doesn't cut it but I didn't buy it for that purpose. Running through a D/A also helps alot but still a few steps away from CD quality.

I've been using my Direct TV receiver in my main system as the Music Choice they used to offer had quite good sound quality. Similar to CD, in fact. I was really bummed when they switched to carrying the music channels from XM. The sound quality is dreadful by comparison, but not worse than typical FM through a Mid Fi system, I suppose.
As it happens, I have Sirius on my secondary (office) system through a Kenwood DT7000 receiver. The music quality is definitely worse than CD most of the time. They do, however, claim to use some sort of dynamic compression so that the sound quality may improve based on how many football games they are carrying etc. Also, depending on the channel in use, the sound approaches acceptable, but never what I'd call HI-FI. I find that Sirius is quite acceptable in the car with a Sirius One receiver which just uses an RF modulator to get the signal to the stereo. It works fine though in that environment. Bottom line for me is that Music Choice on Direct TVwas a significant loss in terms of music quality. I would not consider either Sirius or XM a real high end source, but of course, I'm not using it that way. I'm a Stern fan, btw, so the Sirius will stay for content, but not for its ability to provide high-grade sound.

I run Sirius through a benchmark dac from a dish network satellite box via toslink. The dac is an improvement but not worth the cost unless you want it for other uses also. However, it is not FM quality as compared to my tuner and clearly sounds compressed, especially at slightly elevated listening levels. I tried the above-mentioned MF tube buffer but did not notice any obvious improvement. That said, Sirius is free on dish and I really like the classical programming; it sounds fine at low volumes and actually has a remarkable soundstage that occasionally gets my attention. If you enjoy the programming, it is worth it, especially if you live in the boonies.