I have a friend who works for DMX. She's in a non-technical department and I won't be able to get her to provide me with any technical or other info. But I've listened to DMX at her house many, many times.
She gets about 110 channels. But I think some of these are reserved for stores who custom program their music, etc. I know they won't sell those channels to the public. But I'm surprised to hear they only offer 40 of them. I know there are many such as Japanese, Hawaiiian, etc. that are probably not being included in this. One thing that attracts me to DMX is the variety of the programming. But there are about 8-10 channels that I would consider my "core" listening group, and I would imagine these are all included in their package. My favorite, if I remember right, is 62, which is "adult contemporary" or "adult coffee house."
I don't know their bit rate and haven't heard DMX on a decent system. It sounds great in my friend's house with built-in speakers in the walls and ceilings of various rooms, but that's not how audio-loving folks normally listen.
DMX has very, very good programming. But the songs do play in rotation for about 2 weeks on each channel, until they change them. I would guess at least 200 songs on each channel in each rotation, but I could be way off. Sometimes I've heard songs repeating on successive weekends.
My ideal music setup would be whole-house DMX + whole-house hard disk archive of CDs. I already have my 400 CDs on hard disk and can stream any of them to my Squeezebox by pressing a few remote control buttons. That gives me my own collection. DMX would give me an outside collection that I don't have to program, as well as turning me on to new music. You just turn it on and it's there, no thought required. It would be especially good for background music.
If you get DMX, please post a detailed report!
Edited to add: I just realized there may be a subset of DMX that's carried by cable or satellite companies. If this is what you're looking at, and you would not have a separate DMX dish on your roof and your own DMX account, then I can't speak for what's being offered. The cable or satellite company would be choosing the channels and probably using their own bitrate, as opposed to DMX's. But it would still be great if you posted a detailed report on your DMX experience if you get them through your cable/satellite company!
