New Age/ Ambient

[DAB]

When it comes to New Age/ Ambient. I think I actually like Sirius's Spa 73, better than Audiovisions. Though both of them are good. I wonder when they merge channels if both of them will survive or if we will lose Audiovisions all together. Then there is Escape which plays beautiful music. We listen to this at the office sometimes and the staff seems to really like it. I hope this is considered one of those channels that SIRIUS has nothing like it, so it remains.

So what about you all that like this type music. You like XM Audiovision or Sirius's Spa73?

 

[Davis]

I recently started playing Spa73 in the background of my office, if I am not listening to Bubba or Howard. I need a noise in the background that has varying beats (this is why I LOVE Reggae) or my mind drifts away. Yes, it is strange but I can't concentrate when it is silent.

 

[Dave]

Both are good but I prefer Audio Visions.

My biggest drawback about Spa 73 is that they include some mellow rock - which isn't even considered New Age. Audio Visions stays true-form: New Age, Ambient, and Space Music.

 

[acap]

Spa 73 is way better then Audio Visions. Audio Visions has like Dave said above too much space music and it drives me nuts.

 

[DAB]

I agree the space music is somewhat a turn off on Audiovisions. It will interesting to see if Audiovision makes after the merging of channels.

 

[Dave]

Actually I prefer Audio Visions because of the Space Music - it's limited to late nights anyways. Good music to fall asleep to.

 

[hexagram]

Whenever I'm stressed or just feel like relaxing, I always tune in to Spa 73.

If Spa 73 takes over Audio Visions, I can see the channel getting even better if they merge the programming just right.

 

[DAB]

Yeah, I hope we get Hearts of Space on Spa 73. There is no reason if they take away Audiovision that we can't get that program to add to Spa 73's line up.

There are many channels like this that they can actually merge the programming rather than just scrap one for the other totally.

 

[MadisonRadio1]

Sirius Pure Jazz is sounding good tonite

 

[J_T_Brown]

I listened to Sirius a few months back in a rental car wasn't too impressed, even with the merger I'll stick with the XM channels as long as I can. I like "Night Vision" on Audiovision best myself. I listen to Escape at times and especially when they play the Christmas music. Escape really brings back memories of when I was a kid and all they used to play at work was a station called K-BON that then played music just like Escape does. Hope not all I like will be gone like I keep reading. I don't get it, XM always touted the larger subscription base yet from all I've read most of the channels that could be going are XM channels!

 

[Araxen]

I hope they ditch the Spa and give us what XM had for new age music. The Spa isn't that great imo and I'm sure the XM offering is better.

 

[DAB]

I hope they ditch the Spa and give us what XM had for new age music. The Spa isn't that great imo and I'm sure the XM offering is better.

Well I hope just the opposite, that spacey crap they play on Audivisions is nerve racking. It basically space with a light mix of ambient and some new age thrown in for good measure. Spa is a REAL new age channel with a little space and ambient thrown in for good measure.

 

[hexagram]

Yeah, I hope we get Hearts of Space on Spa 73. There is no reason if they take away Audiovision that we can't get that program to add to Spa 73's line up.

There are many channels like this that they can actually merge the programming rather than just scrap one for the other totally.

Spa now has Hearts of Space. Looks like I was right, they merged the programming perfectly. It sounds great to me.

 

[mch]

Heh, DAB is still holding down the fort on Spa/Soundscapes VS Audio Visions. Good to see.:yesshake:

The one thing Spa needs to be perfect, and I wrote them about this already, is to integrate XM's nature tracks. Audio Visions was only okay to me, but "Night Visions", a 4/5-ish hour block (I forget) where they turned off the upbeat and spacey stuff, switched to a quiet promo ID announcer (which would sometimes read poetry), and play lots of rainforest/thunderstorm/etc tracks. It was great.

That really should be continued on Spa, if not the name but the idea of nightshift programming heavy on the white noise.

 

[hexagram]

"Night Visions", a 4/5-ish hour block (I forget) where they turned off the upbeat and spacey stuff, switched to a quiet promo ID announcer (which would sometimes read poetry), and play lots of rainforest/thunderstorm/etc tracks. It was great.

That really should be continued on Spa, if not the name but the idea of nightshift programming heavy on the white noise.

I hope so. It sounds great to me. But I could do without the poetry reading or just a little bit now and then followed by nature tracks during the block. I'll let them know.

 

[DAB]

Heh, DAB is still holding down the fort on Spa/Soundscapes VS Audio Visions. Good to see.:yesshake:

The one thing Spa needs to be perfect, and I wrote them about this already, is to integrate XM's nature tracks. Audio Visions was only okay to me, but "Night Visions", a 4/5-ish hour block (I forget) where they turned off the upbeat and spacey stuff, switched to a quiet promo ID announcer (which would sometimes read poetry), and play lots of rainforest/thunderstorm/etc tracks. It was great.

That really should be continued on Spa, if not the name but the idea of nightshift programming heavy on the white noise.

Hey mch, long time no see, good to see you here on DRC.

Yeah, you know I love my new age so I have to keep pushing it. I did notice that unlike Spa of Sirius only, they are doing the poetry and nature sounds, but that was last night when I was listening. We'll have to see how they tweak this thing. Clearly it is already slightly different than the original spa because I notice now they occasionally say Spa, they never did that on Spa 73.

I am wondering if they are going to include Hearts of Space on Spa since that was a regular on XM's Audiovision.

 

[mch]

DAB, XM's newly-published Spa page shows Hearts of Space every weeknight. I know Hearts is an old programme with lots of episodes in the vault, but that seems a bit excessive to me. Audio Visions used to air Hearts once a week, like any other affiliate. I sometimes listen to Hearts locally on KCNV. It's not an appropriate replacement for Night Visions, that's for sure.

h3x, the poetry stuff was very short and more like an extended ident. It happened maybe once an hour. It always ended in a channel ident and was read by one of the two quiet voices that did the channel ident. Either a male voice or this female voice with a bit of a Russian accent . "XM 77... You are having.. Night Visions."

 

[mch]

If you want a general idea of what Night Visions sounded like, or if you do remember it and miss it, check out my Galaxie thread because they have a Nature station and for me it feels very much the same aside from no station idents.

 

[DAB]

Well Spa as it is now called has been basically Audivisionized. It doesn't even sound like the same channel anymore. However, it does seem they sort of blended the channels together and overall I am pretty okay with it.

I can still create new age channels and or meditation/relaxation channels on Slacker and or Pandora which are better. But Spa isn't bad at all.

The nightly Hearts of Space is a little much, because I don't always like every program they have. But I guess we are stuck with that for now.

 

[mch]

That's odd. I listened it to three nights on the PC stream and sort of felt it was the other way around. I enjoyed Audio Visions, never listened much to Spa since I left Sirius before they brought back new-age, and found the combined station pretty odd. There's a lot more Enya/John Tesh kind of stuff in there and (Hearts aside) a lot less space and nature.