The Infinite Dial

Hey Tom.

I can't answer your question fully as I just discovered Slacker a week or two ago. So far, I've only used its prebuilt stations which are pretty outstanding.

I've been on Pandora for a number of years now and am a big fan. It's interesting to hear it walk down a path until you tell it that you don't like the direction it's heading. It's like a puppy checking out how far it can go before you call it back.

I have noticed that if you listen to the same Pandora station for a few hours, you start to hear the same songs repeated (not in the same order). I'd think that they'd have enough material to work with where that wouldn't happen, but it does.

Hi Tom:

Interesting drag race results. I've used both products and I am now a die hard Slacker fan. I respect Pandora's success but my experience was a limited playlist for my genre and it seemed that no matter what artist I started with, an hour later Meatloaf "Bat Out of Hell" would play.

My starting artists at different times were Little Feat, Grateful Dead, Billy Cobham and Neil Young. Pandora's playlist for these artists often brought up the same 3 or 4 songs and I got burned out quickly. I found Last.fm had more depth, especially with the jazz fusion.

Now as it relates to Slacker, I'm curious what your options settings were since this can greatly affect the mix of artists. Where Pandora brought up the more recognized songs in your test, Slacker went way deeper. The Options settings are unique from what I've seen from other stream providers and I think this is what will also really set Slacker apart from their competition.

For me that means a lot more variety and a welcome surprise to hearing a song I really did forget about.

Personally, I've created my own custom playlist on Slacker and do not allow for any new artists to be suggested, only songs from the ones I've selected.

I also just added the app to my Blackberry and it's great. I consider myself to be very particular and hard to satisfy but since I can customize my playlist only with artists I select, then further tweak with the Options, and make it portable, the only thing left is a connection to my car which I have to believe is only a matter of time.

Here's my playlist:

http://www.slacker.com/?sid=stations/9406213/1226009478

Enjoy!

Roger

I have used both services for many hours. My wife has as well. She likes both services a great deal, and we both enjoy them over last.fm or any other internet streaming radio service we have sampled.

Between the two we find Pandora's interface easier and quicker to use. She hands down enjoys Pandora but aside from the slicker interface I enjoy Slacker. It provides more station tweeking options and less repeats which is great. Even still I like Pandora more because it did NOT have audio ads like Slacker does. However, since Pandora is adding audio ads similar to Slacker it makes it a much closer battle. They both have iPhone Applications now as well. Ultimately I think Slacker with the $3 a month fee is probably the best option of any internet radio, with Pandora as the closest second.

Does anyone know if Slacker has a "quick mix" option like Pandora, whereby all of your stations are mixed together? Thanks

For a long time I was a Pandora user and fan. Had never heard of Slacker -show you how much I know. Last month Pandora cut me off in the middle of the month wanting me to pay them. This month when Pandora cut me off I discovered they had competition. Signed up for Slaker and will never go back to Pandora. Not only for the money. The depth of selection in my "categories" (Country and Latin) is very, very limited @ Pandora.

I've been bouncing back and forth for a couple of months. I prefer the Pandora UI. Slacker definitely has deeper mixes. I like Pandora's price, currently cheaper by $0.99/mo.

Unfortunately, here is the deal breaker for me. Slackers "outages" are becoming annoying. Almost daily. Sometimes lasting half-a-day at a time. Growing pains? Maybe.

I guess I'll keep using the free services for a bit longer until something shakes out in the reliability department.

I love music... but NOT like most people. I'm bored and distracted, and I don't care enough. Mostly, I don't even listen to music! CD's and MP3's are too much trouble and lack diversity. I hate knowing the depth of the playlists and can't be bothered to do anything about it. I hate the radio, the ADS! For five years (2004-09) I listened to XM, and loved it.... I thought. It irritated me, but never enough to listen to FM! Sometimes I'd go back to silence for a week or more at a time. There were few stations and they mixed material within a station in such a way that I could not tolerate. Sometimes I'd flip between two stations, searching for change, and the VERY SAME SONG would be playing on both!!!!! WHAAAAT!?!?! XM is gone now. I bought an iPhone and am trying out this internet radio thing. I love that anything, absolutely anything, could come up next. Old songs. Unpopular songs. Brand new hit songs. Thats what I liked about XM. But now I have more choice. Now I can customize. I started with Pandora and was happy.... but as I booed and cheered songs the station drifted further from what I wanted. I made a new station... started ok but got worse and worse as I went. Tried slacker. YES! Real human people have been here, I know it, I can tell! Ahhh, to hell with FM, XM, and all else. Slacker provides the best experience for me by a long margin. Unknown playlists that excite and don't wander just can't come from the Pandora computers or from the sickly limited xm stations.

I have been using Slacker and Pandora on my blackberry phone for quite some time now. I have noticed a few very subtle differences (in addition to posted above).

To be fair, I input the same artist on both apps. Slacker gives me more variety on the channel than Pandora. Pandora's music choices are more similar to the category than Slacker.

Slacker starts up faster, caches more streaming music than Pandora. I can, if I choose to, cache a station on my 16gb microSD for listening while offline. Pandora has no option for that. Slacker also as a windows application which is helpful to Slack around almost everywhere. It also surpasses (not by much) Pandora's sound quality.

Pandora has a much simpler menus making it easier to use. I also like the background information on the artist as the song is playing.

I still haven't made a decision on which one is better. Wait, do I have to? I surely hope that both advance to a point where art of music becomes the central theme instead of features.

I can't tell you how much better either Pandora's or Slacker's interface is, or about the selection. I will admit that I have been a pandora listener for the past 6 mos. I only noticed slacker because I was researching blu ray players. I think the music is okay...but the biggest difference between the two is Pandora plays louder on my computer than Slacker. In fact I just gave slacker a test run and I was like, "is this thing up all the way?" I just went to the pandora site and it was at a more suitable volume.

Hi!
Pandora and Slacker radio is not available in my country - Portugal.
I have found tv243.com a great alternative for it.