"Reference Grade Receivers"???

[WalksInDarkness]

Hi Folks,

My radio reception is terrible, and I want to go with Satellite Radio. This will be for my setup which is networked to several AVRs in my house, so I want a high quality "Reference Grade" receiver with digital outputs for decent sound (not one of those little dashboard units). All I see is uber high-end stuff like Onkyo and Polk for $250-$1,000 which is a bit steep. Are there any decent quality ones say maybe closer to the $100 range?

BTW: It makes no difference to me whether it is XM or Sirius...

Thanks in advance!

 

[BoisePaul]

I don't think you're going to find anything in the $100 range. I have the Polk SRH1000 Sirius tuner (retails for $300, got it a bit cheaper, but not much). While it looks nice, it's nothing to rave about - most of the chassis is empty space, and the sound quality is mediocre. I bought the unit for the office (have Sirius in the truck and can't live without it, figured it would be great for my office as well) but tried it at home to start. Ran it through the tube monos and my Paradigms - yuck! It's probably not the quality of the electronics, but rather the overcompressed bitstream that makes me say that. In fact, I was using an external DAC, so I'm absolutely sure that it was the stream.

In the office it's not so bad - I've got it connected analog to a pair of tube powered speakers and it sounds pretty good for background music. Of course, if I'm doing my job, I shouldn't be paying that much attention to the music, and I can't really play it at levels that make the stream's lack of quality stand out.