OSH
Posts: 4,145
Feb 26, 2011 6:15pm
I Wear Pants;692393 wrote:You can use the radio feature in Grooveshark to get a very similar experience to what Pandora does.
I guess I never knew that. I'll fiddle around with it again.
If it's "similar" to Pandora, it's still not exactly what Pandora is. Pandora is a very good at offering varieties. I just don't understand how they offer a "similar" artist that is absolutely nothing like the bands and artists that I have "liked" or "suggested."
W
wghfan
Posts: 744
Feb 26, 2011 8:53pm
gut;692017 wrote:I pay the $35 a year or whatever for the premium account. Worth it for the higher quality, no ads, and unlimited skips (6 per channel per hour, but since you can put 100 channels on there...).
I've been spending a lot of time tweaking stations with song seeds and thumb up/down a bunch of selections. I have a number of stations that are dialed in really well, but a few still seem to be all over the place. You have to be pretty disciplined about how you seed stations and what you thumbs up and down, and those that are a bit all over the place are probably why a few of my stations aren't very good.
My one fucking annoyance is Cold Play seems to pop-up on a bunch of stations ALL the time. They've got a couple of good songs, but I really don't like Cold Play, Pandora! How do you end-up with Cold Play on a heavy metal station, WTF Pandora?!? Nirvana is another one that seems to play on a bunch of stations and I like Nirvana even less (before the Nirvana fanboys get all up in arms, A LOT of Nirvana songs really fucking suck, they really do).
Is the audio quality really better on Pandora One? They advertise it as is. Can you tell the difference?
I
I Wear Pants
Posts: 16,223
Feb 26, 2011 8:55pm
OSH;692829 wrote:I guess I never knew that. I'll fiddle around with it again.
If it's "similar" to Pandora, it's still not exactly what Pandora is. Pandora is a very good at offering varieties. I just don't understand how they offer a "similar" artist that is absolutely nothing like the bands and artists that I have "liked" or "suggested."
When you search a song or artist and then click on a song to play there is a "Radio" button to click. If you click that it essentially turns Grooveshark into Pandora.
G
gut
Posts: 15,058
Feb 26, 2011 9:34pm
wghfan;692928 wrote:Is the audio quality really better on Pandora One? They advertise it as is. Can you tell the difference?
Depends on your headphones I suppose. Free Pandora is streamed at 128bit (I think), premium at 192. 192 is considered to be a level most ears can't distinguish from lossless.
I
I Wear Pants
Posts: 16,223
Feb 26, 2011 9:57pm
That's bologna.
If you have anything other than garbage phones you can definitely hear the increase in quality from 192, 320 kbps and from that to lossless. The last gap depends a little bit more on you actually listening to music "correctly" and having quality speakers/headphones/earbuds.
If you have anything other than garbage phones you can definitely hear the increase in quality from 192, 320 kbps and from that to lossless. The last gap depends a little bit more on you actually listening to music "correctly" and having quality speakers/headphones/earbuds.
W
wghfan
Posts: 744
Feb 26, 2011 10:11pm
I know one thing the audio quality of Pandora is really good. I have Sirius/XM and their audio quality sucks bad.
M
MontyBrunswick
Feb 26, 2011 11:59pm
gut;692963 wrote:Depends on your headphones I suppose. Free Pandora is streamed at 128bit (I think), premium at 192. 192 is considered to be a level most ears can't distinguish from lossless.
I think free Pandora is streamed at 96kbps or 64kbps on mobile devices. It might be 128kbps on PC though.
Pick6
Posts: 14,946
Feb 27, 2011 4:33pm
just downloaded grooveshark on my phone to check it out. Can't even join. I keep getting some server error.
LJ
Posts: 16,351
Feb 27, 2011 4:56pm
Pick6;692804 wrote:check for an update. i had the same problem then it went away after i updated it
I updated last night, let's see what happens on my drive home tomorrow
M
MontyBrunswick
Feb 28, 2011 2:13am
I downloaded Slacker today. Seems pretty good. I'll try it out more tomorrow.
Curly J
Posts: 7,282
Feb 28, 2011 5:26am
I have Pandora and Slacker on my Incredible. I created a Rush station and it ended up playing a lot of Boston and Journey. I don't listen to it that much anymore.
G
gut
Posts: 15,058
Feb 28, 2011 5:41am
Curly J;694427 wrote:I have Pandora and Slacker on my Incredible. I created a Rush station and it ended up playing a lot of Boston and Journey. I don't listen to it that much anymore.
You've got to be very careful on how you create and maintain stations to get good results. Also, Pandora can only play an artist 4 times over 3 hours, so if you're expecting a bunch of Rush on a channel it's never going to happen. I find that even seeding with an artist can sometimes be too broad, especially for those that have a broader ranges of styles in their music.
Even then, it does seem sometimes like Pandora will really nail a station for me, but then other times it seems like the selections are out of left field. And goddamnit if Coldplay and Nirvana don't come on every station until I kill them.