Yeah it seems like they want to kill XM with a fine that must be into the millions of dollars by now. I can’t see the harm in these recorders but maybe the RIAA wants to stop them now before they get features like connecting to computers or the net to share the songs or a cord to connect to your iPod or phone or a wireless connection that would be able to share play lists with others at the office or on the train.

The thing they don’t take into account once again is that like recording off of FM radio satellite has much the same compression limiting and processing that distorts the sound.

I can hear codec ringing high frequency phasing and other low-bit artifacts in the sound. To think you get anywhere near the quality of a CD is just wrong. They do give Howard Stern a lot of bandwidth on Sirius though they got the engineers to give his broadcasts a warm analog sound..