Direct Tv music channels ans use in audio system

I use my DirecTV coax digital out to my Bryston BDA-1 DAC. It works reliable, however the sound quality is so-so. The internet radio channels on my Apple TV sound much better.

It's certainly possible for the music channels to sound excellent, before the Sirius XM merger, the channels that DirecTV carried were different, and some of them just sounded fantastic. Unfortunately, it's now all heavily compressed, and well, better than nothing.

TV shows can sound quite good, and of course you can output sound in Dolby Digital, so for TV shows with a Dolby Digital processor, the sound quality is quite good.

I just got Direct TV so this is good information.

Those channels are ok for background music, but there never has been any quality. Hell, we can hardly get any 1080 video. Cable is no different.

"but the sound quality is pretty bad - thin and lifeless..."

Given how much information "broadband" (CATV, sat, FIOS, etc) providers try to shove down the pipe, it's simply a case of 10 pounds of shit in a 5 pound bag...no surprise.

Actually, FIOS does have the advantage in available bandwidth but that doesn't mean the content providers will make use of it. Those boxes are capable of close to 1G bandwidth if the service provider opens them up. CATV is limited by the time slicing that happens due to the conversion to/from RF. So 10 set top boxes hanging off the same network termination box in a neighborhood have to share time. It is amazing what they can do with the technology choices they made years ago. Sat is limited by the number of transceivers on each sat, which is why we crazy sat subscribers have a funky 5 lnb dish. That said most all of us who were developing GPON boxes have been re-tasked to the cable box space. Guess we know who is winning that war. ;-)