[SiriusHardware]

I've actually always preferred the hard, crisp sound of FM over AM.

Discounting the effect of receiver AGC for a moment, the 'loudness' of an FM signal is determined by how far it is being deviated from the centre frequency, not by the strength of the signal. The deviation is the same no matter how close or how far away the signal is coming from, so the volume is constant. When the signal is very weak, noise starts to encroach, eventually making the audio hard to pick out, but the audio from the sending station doesn't really get any quieter.

With AM, the 'volume' of the signal recovered on detection is directly proportional to the strength of the signal being received, so stations further away will sound quieter and stations which are very close will sound very loud and distorted. This is why A.M. radios really did need an RF gain control, for those times when you might be travelling in a close convoy for example.

In theory, the AGC on AM receivers should ensure that weak signals are amplified (along with any noise which happens to be around, unfortunately) and strong signals are attenuated, but the effect of signal strength on the volume of a received AM signal is always quite noticeable to me.