 |
|
EXPERTS AGREE XM SATELLITE RADIO HAS SUPERIOR SOUND QUALITY Sound & Vision Magazine & Renowned Audio Quality Expert Bob Ludwig Perform First Side-by-Side Tests of XM & its Competitor Washington, DC, June 5, 2002 - XM Satellite Radio was judged to have superior sound quality over its competitor in two recent side-by-side evaluations, one by Sound & Vision magazine, the world's largest audio-video enthusiast publication, and the other by internationally renowned audio quality expert and mastering engineer Bob Ludwig. In May, Ludwig declared XM to have superior sound quality after an in-depth, side-by-side evaluation of the two satellite radio services conducted at his world-famous Gateway Mastering Studios. These finding were mirrored in the just-issued July/August issue of Sound & Vision - the world's largest audio-video enthusiast publication - which also declared XM the undisputed winner of its sound quality evaluation, after two days of road testing XM and its competitor in and around Denver, Colorado. XM recently revealed that it achieves its superior sound by using CT-aacPlus audio encoding with Neural Audio optimization, which provides stellar sound quality remarkably close to Compact Disc. CT-aacPlus is the combination of Advanced Audio Coding (AAC), a highly efficient global standard combining the work of the world's foremost experts on perceptual audio encoding -- AT&T, Dolby, Fraunhofer, and Sony - with Coding Technologies' revolutionary Spectral Band Replication technology. 'XM Sounds Better,' Says Sound & Vision After two days of road testing XM and its competitor in both in the city of Denver and in the surrounding mountains, Sound & Vision Magazine in its current July/August issue says flatly that XM has superior sound quality. The evaluation was performed by Senior Contributing Editor Ken C. Pohlmann, who teaches audio engineering at the University of Miami, and Contributor Leslie Shapiro, a recording engineer. "At this stage of the game, XM sounds better than Sirius," Pohlmann and Shapiro said. "The bottom line: Sirius sound quality was inferior to XM's - to a significant degree we thought." The
road tests of XM and Sirius- both of whose services are now commercially
available - took place in vehicles outfitted by the companies. Sound
& Vision listened to XM on a Pioneer GEX-903 receiver with a Blitzsafe
Digital Interface; Sirius was heard over a Kenwood KTC-SR901 receiver.
Both XM and Sirius participated in and gave their full support to the tests. ".... It's irrefutable that satellite radio is fantastic," Sound & Vision said. XM
Has the Best Sound in Satellite Radio, Premier audio quality expert and mastering engineer Bob Ludwig declared XM to have the best sound in satellite radio, based on a recent evaluation at his Gateway Mastering studios. Ludwig's tests were the first independent, third-party studio evaluations of the two competing audio codecs being used for satellite radio services. Ludwig, who has mastered countless gold and platinum records for many of the world's top musical artists, including Eric Clapton, the Rolling Stones, Madonna, k.d. lang, and Creed, performed comprehensive comparisons among the original CD sources and broadcasts of the songs on XM and on its competitor Sirius Satellite Radio, all under laboratory conditions in his sound studios. Over 10 hours of testing XM and Sirius broadcasts, Ludwig compared a wide range of musical genres -- including rock, country, jazz, classical, and contemporary-- and artists, from the Pretenders to Def Leppard, Blue Highway, Shostakovich, and John Coltrane. Ludwig said he consistently found the XM sound superior. Def Leppard's Bringin On The Heartbreak, XM was "much closer to the CD;" Jackson Browne's Running on Empty --"XM wins again; it was closer to the CD;" Shostakovich, Symphony No. 5, Op 47 - "XM was more musical." "Overall, XM was more natural sounding and a much better music experience," Ludwig concluded.
General Motors in November rolled out factory-installed Delphi-Delco XM radios in Cadillac Deville and Seville models, and will expand to a total of 25 Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC, Olds and Pontiac models this year. Isuzu dealers will begin to offer XM radios to customers later this month. XM will be available as an option this coming fall on six Infiniti and Nissan 2003 models as well a future Audi and Volkswagen models. XM radios are available at major electronics retailers nationwide. Leading manufacturers such as Sony, Alpine and Pioneer offer a broad array of XM radios that easily enable any existing car stereo system. XM's strategic investors include America's leading car, radio and satellite TV companies -- General Motors, American Honda Motor Co. Inc., Clear Channel Communications and DIRECTV. For more information, please visit XM's web site: http://www.xmradio.com. About
Coding Technologies Coding Technologies, a privately held company with offices in Stockholm, Sweden, and Nuremberg, Germany, combines the exceptional skills of a Swedish company specialized in audio compression technologies and a spin-off from the renowned Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits, the inventor of MP3. For
more information, visit http://www.codingtechnologies.com. # # # Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements in this press release include demand for the company's service, the company's dependence on third party vendors, its continuing need for additional financing, as well as other risks described in XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc.'s Form 8-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on 4-8-2002. Copies of the filing are available upon request from XM Radio' s Investor Relations Department.
|